Subject: Human rights in the EU - absence of common procedures for the reporting by Member States of human rights violations

In its six-monthly reports, Amnesty International expresses concern at systematic human rights violations in most Member States of the European Union, the victims being mainly migrants or members of minority groups and those responsible usually being members of the security forces. The violations may take the form of torture, ill-treatment and the excessive use of violence and in most cases they remain unpunished.

At the same time the European Union is engaged in a major endeavour to secure the protection of human rights outside its borders, having issued a series of recommendations and demands to third countries with which it is cooperating or which it is funding, while it remains silent about human rights violations taking place within its borders. At the same time the Treaties - by all accounts including the new constitutional Treaty currently being drawn up - clearly state that European Union's desire to protect human rights both outside and within. However, from the above it appears that in practice the European Union regards the protection of human rights within as the responsibility of the Member States and has accordingly failed to establish any supranational mechanism for monitoring and assessing the conduct of Member States and recommending measures to remedy problems, in particular structural shortcomings.

What steps will the Commission take to develop a common mechanism reporting human rights violations within the Member States of the European Union?