The wrath of Commissioner Reding
Civitas, 15 September 2010
The EU may have spent the last month dithering nervously over the legality of France’s Roma expulsions, but the emergence of a French circulaire has shocked the EU into decisive action, writes Natalie Hamill. In a press briefing yesterday (14th September) the EU Justice Commissioner unleashed a scathing attack on France’s expulsion of its Roma population, banging her fist and crying ‘enough is enough’ after the leaked document proved the French Government had deliberately targeted the Roma minority.
Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding warned that ‘no Member State can expect special treatment when fundamental values and European laws are at stake. This applies today to France. This applies equally to all other Member States, big or small, which would be in a similar situation. You can count on me for that’.
France’s expulsion policy has seen around 900 Roma returned to their country of origin, and has levelled many Roma encampments. Until this week, the Commission had expressed ‘unease’ over President Sarkozy’s policy; and warned France not to break international law (including the Schengen Convention, which allows visa-free travel across many Member State borders). Commissioner Reding admitted to having been ‘appalled’ by France’s policy since it was first proposed, but she allowed France to continue unchallenged after French ministers assured her the policy was not singling out one minority. The leaking of French ministry of interior documents shows this reassurance was a pack of lies – the Roma were the singular target of France’s expulsion policy, as the documents repeated several times.
The Commissioner’s disgust was apparent as she outlined her intention to initiate infringements procedures against France.
However, France has not taken its public dressing-down well and is unlikely to give in easily. For example French European Affairs Minister Pierre Lellouche laid the foundations for a battle with the EU when he challenged the authority of the Commission as the ‘interpreter of the treaties’. Furthermore, the Elysée Palace emerged with guns blazing: ‘how dare the EU address a major power such as France in this manner?!’, cried an enraged French junior minister for EU affairs, earlier today. But the French Government is naive if it thinks returning to a de Gaullian rhetoric of French grandeur will silence Commissioner Reding.
The EU uses its normative powerbase to justify its existence externally, not least through promoting democracy and the importance of human rights. Viviane Reding’s condemnation of France will only strengthen because of its importance for the EU’s credibility. Selim Kuneralp, the Turkish ambassador to the EU said (with, it has to be said, a hint of smugness) ‘I am very happy to see the commission showing the same kind of sensitivity to human rights violations at home as it does in candidate countries or third countries.’
France’s behaviour is, as Commissioner Reding called it, ‘a disgrace’ but, as former police commissioner Ian Blair noted, so to was the relative silence such a policy was greeted with at the international level. Whilst the EU must be careful not to trespass into states’ national sovereignty, concern about human rights violations should not stop at national boundaries. Many people have been happy to turn a blind eye; Commissioner Reding however, is certainly not.