Reding divides the EU with attack on France
Reding divides the EU with attack on France
The European Union is struggling to contain the fall-out from a blistering condemnation of France by Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for justice and fundamental rights.
● ‘Enough is enough!’
● Comment: chiding of France could yet backfire
● Roma row: a timeline
Reding ignited a firestorm of charge and counter-charge with what was an unprecedented attack on an EU member state by a commissioner.
In a hastily arranged public statement on Tuesday (14 September), Reding likened the French treatment of Roma to the experiences of the Second World War, condemned the conduct of French ministers as “a disgrace” and warned that legal action would be taken.
She said that she was demanding “an immediate and swift explanation” of instructions sent out from the interior ministry to police chiefs which urged them to prioritise the clearance of 300 Roma camps. The instructions, leaked on Monday (13 September), dated from 5 August.
Commission staff said immediately after Reding’s statement that she had the full support of José Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission. But yesterday, after protests from France about Reding’s language, he moved to soften her remarks.
Reding said on Tuesday that the French had created a situation “which gave the impression that people are being removed from a member state of the European Union just because they belong to a certain ethnic minority”. “This is a situation I had thought Europe would not have to witness again after the Second World War,” she added.
Officials from French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s office said Reding’s comments were “simply not acceptable”.
“She is using an expression that is both shocking and anachronistic,” said Eric Besson, France’s immigration minister.
Jean-Pierre Audy, the leader of France’s UMP MEPs, said the comparison with suffering in the Second World War was “grotesque”.
Barroso said yesterday: “One of the…expressions used in the heat of the moment may have given rise to misunderstandings.
“Vice-president Reding did not want to establish any parallelism between what happened in World War II and the present.”
Michel Barnier, France’s European commissioner, said that everyone should calm down “so we can avoid pointless polemics and certain historical parallels that do not make any sense”.
Chantal Brunel, a spokeswoman for Sarkozy’s UMP party, said on Belgian radio that France “would not take lessons in morality from a commissioner who represents 350,000 people”. But in Reding’s home country of Luxembourg, Jean Asselborn, the foreign minister said he was “completely in line with the position taken by the Commission”.
Steffen Seibert, a spokesman for the German government, said the principle of the freedom of movement should be respected and that there should be no discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin. He said, however, that “it was sometimes more useful to take positions when they are made in a more moderate tone”.
Other countries said they would await the outcome of a legal analysis that the Commission is preparing, which is expected to take another two weeks to complete.
Reding said she was personally convinced that “the Commission will have no choice but to initiate infringement action against France”.
Diplomats said the Belgian government, which holds the presidency of the Council of Ministers, is planning to organise a discussion between member states about the Roma issue as soon as possible in an attempt to ease tensions.
The French government said that it was keen to resume dialogue with the Commission.
Christophe Hillion, a legal expert at the Swedish Institute for European Studies in Stockholm, said the row might well strengthen the Commission’s authority on the protection of European citizens’ rights. “The EU is not just an internal market: everyone has to take that seriously,” he said.
Renate Weber, a Romanian Liberal MEP, said that while Reding’s language was “tough”, action was long overdue.
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