EU MINISTERS OPEN TALKS ON PLANS TO CRIMINALIZE RACISM, XENOPHOBIA
DPA
19 April 07
Luxembourg (dpa) – European Union justice ministers on Thursday opened
talks on plans to establish common rules to criminalize racism and
xenophobia for the first time in the 27-member bloc.
German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries said that the EU needed
common minimum standards on combatting racism and xenophobia.
Germany currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
"We protect people because of their race or ethnic origin, and we
don’t tolerate their being discriminated against or that violence is
used against them," Zypries told reporters in German when arriving
for the meeting in Luxembourg.
"We don’t want incitement to violence or hatred," she added.
EU Justice Commissioner Franco Frattini urged national governments
to agree on ambitious rules, arguing that the fight against racism
and xenophobia was a "basic pillar of the European democracy."
Germany wants to use its term at the bloc’s helm to harmonize EU-
wide differences on combating racism and xenophobia.
Under the text being debated, EU countries would set jail terms of
at least one to three years for "publicly inciting to violence or
hatred … directed against a group of persons or a member of such
a group defined by reference to race, colour, religion, descent or
national or ethnic origin."
Germany views a common EU law as a moral obligation, but countries
like Britain, Ireland and the Scandinavian states resist unified
legislation as a violation of civil liberties.
EU diplomats have said that the planned rules only aimed to achieve a
"minimum level of harmonization" as the differences in national legal
systems had to be respected.
The definition of what exactly constitutes incitement to violence or
hatred will be left up to member states.
EU lawmakers have criticized the German proposal as having "symbolic
character" only.
Under the plans, hate declarations referring to religion such as
"Kill the Jews" or "Kill the Christians" would remain unpunished in
EU countries where such statements are not criminalized, EU diplomats
have said.
They have also said that German plans to push through new rules which
would make denying the Holocaust – the mass killing of Jews by Nazis
and Nazi supporters – a crime in the EU, would not cover denying the
massacre of Armenians in World War I.
Turkey denies that the killing of up to 1 million Armenians constituted
genocide, putting their deaths down to ethnic strife, disease and
famine, and has prosecuted historians and journalists for calling
it genocide.
In addition, the proposed EU rules would not make denying crimes
against humanity under the Stalin regime punishable, diplomats said.
The Baltic states want the EU to make it a crime to deny the abuses
of the Stalinist regime in the former Soviet Union.
Under the planned rules, the denial of crimes of genocide, crimes
against humanity and war crimes will be punishable in the EU if these
crimes have been defined by international courts and if the statement
incites to hatred or violence.
Citing its "particular historic responsibility" due to its Nazi past,
Germany has said it wants EU member states to adopt the proposed
legislation before it ends its term at the EU helm at the end of June.
Two years ago, Luxembourg tried to use its EU presidency to push
through legislation to unify legal standards for Holocaust denial,
but was blocked by Italy on the grounds that the proposed rules
breached freedom of speech.
Laws against denying the Holocaust already exist in Austria, Belgium,
France, Germany and Spain.
EU justice ministers are also expected to discuss new ways too make
divorces of bi-national marriages in the bloc less expensive and
cumbersome.