An associate member of the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the European Association for the Defence of Human Rights (AEDH) groups leagues and associations that defend human rights in European Union countries. In its statement on the Stockholm programme, published in October 2009, the AEDH claims that human rights must be the programme’s cornerstone, not just a simple reference.Europolitics interviewed the organisation’s President, Pierre Barge.

The Stockholm programme is said to “serve and protect the citizen”. Doesn’t such wording exclude foreigners who reside in Europe?

It all depends on what is meant by citizenship. In an official text like the Stockholm programme, the concept of citizenship refers to the fact of having the nationality of an EU member state, as laid down by the treaties. This means that 26.5 million people [those who are not EU citizens, but who live in the Union - Ed] do not enjoy the same rights as the others. The use of the term ‘citizen’ therefore means that alien residents are not covered by these provisions. Consequently, the AEDH is campaigning for a residence citizenship, ie for citizenship to be disconnected from nationality.

What do you see as the programme’s limits?

First, the document is a bit of a hotchpotch that does not provide details on anything. Second, on fundamental rights, who will monitor effective application of these rights? The Commission, which is the guardian of the treaties, is one possibility, but one that leaves me really sceptical. The other possibility would be the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). As stated in the programme, however, this agency plays an expert role. It is first and foremost a reporting agency and its reports are indeed excellent. It is not an independent body that could act both upstream and downstream. We are calling for an independent authority. This could be the FRA. Why not? The third negative aspect concerns criminal justice. Procedures are supposed to be put in place but there is no harmonisation of criminalisation or of conditions for the exercise of justice in the European Union. [...] More generally, the aim is for people to be able to circulate as if they were mere goods, but they’re human beings… We need a vision of Europe as a community with common rules.

With the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, most of the programme’s content is subject to co-decision with the European Parliament. What role do you think MEPs should play?

First, there is a paradox in this programme. Everyone thought it was going to focus on security, asylum and immigration. Yet the fact is that asylum and immigration are just a small part of the content. At the end of the last legislative period, the Council and Commission simply accelerated the asylum and immigration programme. So there is not much left to do in this area. It is the core themes of the programme that will come under co-decision. This is the whole aspect of criminal records, Europol, VIS, SIS, Eurodac, ECRIS, and so on, and their interoperability. The question is whether members of the European Parliament will be strong enough to assert their independence and whether the culture of compromise [among EU institutions - Ed] will resist this strength or not. The EP’s capacity on all the issues related to criminal records may be stronger because there is a strong alliance among the Greens, the European United Left (EUL), the Socialists and the Liberals. These are questions that also disturb some EPP Conservatives.

So does the programme contain advances?

I don’t know whether there are advances in this programme. There are constant references to human rights, which we cannot but welcome. But there is no escaping the fact that when human rights are mentioned in an EU text, it is generally more of an incantation than a reality. On the common asylum and immigration policy, the Stockholm programme seems to want to return to a more comprehensive and more balanced immigration policy. We have to keep in mind that the Hague programme had taken a law-and-order turn with legislative content that was often discriminatory. That can’t be seen as progress. There are also advances on data protection. But reading the programme differently, we could say that there’s a lot of waffle in it. I would say that it is completely schizophrenic because it says anything and everything and it is not really very clear what policy will be implemented. This means that application of the programme will depend on the political majority in the Council and Parliament.

The AEDH is campaigning for a residence citizenship, ie for citizenship to be disconnected from nationality