The European Parliament Intergroup on Freedom of Religion or Belief and Religious Tolerance (FoRB & RT) on 30 June launched its third annual report on the state of freedom of religion or belief in the world for 2015.
‘This is a document to change the reality through the European Union institutions’, explained its co-president, Peter Van Dalen, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP). It gives recommendations for the European External Action Service (EEAS), the Council and the European Commission. Van Dalen, however, encouraged everyone to look beyond those pages because ‘people are suffering’.
The intergroup co-presidents welcomed the fact that the European Parliament is increasingly aware of human rights being violated throughout the world. They were nonetheless ‘not content’ with the other institutions. ‘The [FORB] guidelines were embraced by us, but the [European] Delegations [i.e. EU “embassies” in the countries] do not even know them’, complained fellow co-president MEP Denis de Jong.
Human Rights not a hobby
These guidelines were written by the EEAS as a tool for the EU officials and member states. A piece of research mentioned in the report from Professor François Foret (Université Libre de Bruxelles) shows that there are very low levels of awareness of the EU Guidelines at the Delegation level.
‘Human rights should not be a hobby, they should be a core task for a diplomat [who should] engage with civil society and religious leaders’, continued de Jong, who asked for both training and more political will. ‘We should not allow that human rights “go down” because the EU has other priorities.’
Nicole Reckinger. from the human rights unit of the EEAS, said that they will ‘take these comments seriously’ as they launch the process for reviewing the guidelines.
