The Annual Aquinas Lecture
Held at Strathclyde University, Glasgow,
February 2000.
Published as a Podium Feature in The Independent
Background
The Aquinas Lecture is held annually on or near the feast of St.Thomas
Aquinas. It deals with a major moral issue, and previous lecturers include the
former Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald.
Claude Moraes was elected as Labour MEP for London in June 1999. One of the
first Asians elected to the European Parliament, he was previously a CRE
Commissioner and Director of JCWI the national immigration and asylum
charity.
In the full lecture, Claude argues that recent events in the EU and in the UK
show that the way countries react to issues of Racism and Xenophobia and treat
minorities can define their international moral standing.
Edited Text for the Independent
It was perhaps inevitable that following such a comprehensive condemnation of
the entry of Jorg Haider's far-right Freedom Party into Austria's coalition
government, the backlash would begin. Questions of whether it really is the role
of the EU to interfere in the democratic decisions of a small country are now
being voiced and attempts made to cast the response as hasty or even
hypocritical.
Yet the unprecedented response of the EU institutions and the condemnation by
EU leaders from left and right - from Chirac to Shroeder was a defining moment
for the EU. The EU is not just an economic coalition, and it is on the issue of
racism, xenophobia and how Europe treats it's minorities, that a welcome if
unexpected moral dimension of the EU is now emerging.
We must of course put the EU reaction in context = the European Parliament
voted for diplomatic sanctions against Austria. But it was the unprecedented
threat to suspend Austria from the EU under Article 7 of the 1997 Amsterdam
Treaty for serious and persistent "breaches of democracy, human rights and the
rule of law" that was a major step forward. However unlikely it will be for the
Austrian coalition to breach Article 7, the threat itself suggests a deeper
reaction to the Austrian issue than simply posturing or hypocritical "naming and
shaming".
From my vantage point in the European Parliament, watching the reaction of
politicians from across the political spectrum, I detected a shift in the way
the EU was viewing the "mainstreaming" of racism and xenophobia. It is true that
neo-fascist parties at some level have prospered in the 80s and 90s in Western
Europe - Le Pen's Front National, the Vlaams Blok and the National Alliance are
some of the neo-facsist players on this new stage - but they prompted little EU
wide reaction.
The reaction to Austria is different because the spectre of far-right
government exists in what is essentially a stable, prosperous country - 4.4 per
cent unemployment, one of the highest GNPs in Europe and an extraordinary yearly
immigration quota of just 8000.
However much the EU wants to view Haider's popularity as a reaction against
Austria's cosy post-war elite - it sees, rightly in my view, the danger of
racism becoming "respectable" in the strategic heart of Europe. It is therefore
not interfering in the democracy of a sovereign state, but insisting that EU
membership means moral as well as economic and social standards.
In the past few days I launched a report in the Parliament which revealed
that in four "Candidate Countries" bordering Austria - including the Czech
Republic and Hungary there is an appalling record of racism towards minorities
such as the Roma. Haider has linked his campaign against foreigners to pledges
to halt enlargement. This is one example of the wider threat the Freedom Party
poses.
As well as the EU reaction, there is also a change in the way the EU
institutions are now treating race discrimination across the EU. Article 13 of
the Amsterdam Treaty will for the first time open the door to a Race Equality
Directive implemented across the EU. The original Treaty of Rome did not even
mention race or minority rights.
In the UK, the outcome of the Stephen Lawrence enquiry and the way in which
families, community groups, lawyers and good journalists treated enquiries like
the Telford and Michael Manson deaths has led to a Race Bill which will now be a
model for the most progressive race relations anywhere in Europe.
This was not inevitable. It required campaigning and a will in government and
from sections of society previously unconvinced of the need for progress.
Initially there was disappointment with the first version of the UK Bill - it
did not include indirect discrimination in new areas of competence - the police,
immigration service, and our prisons. The Home Secretary has now extended the
Bill, and the clear failings of the original Race Relations Act are, at last
being abandoned.
But racism and xenophobia in Europe is a complex and difficult issue. While
we talk about indirect discrimination, some other EU countries still talk of
migrants or foreigners - painful when in some EU countries like Germany, third
country nationals may have lived and worked in Europe for generations.
There are no simple answers to a phenomenon which ranges from addressing race
discrimination against settled black citizens in the workplace to the deep
ethnic hatreds within and on the edges of Europe.
The reaction of the EU to Haider must not be destroyed by cynicism or the
agenda of more mainstream political parties who worry that the exposure of the
politics of race hate and scapegoating in Austria makes it all the more
difficult to pursue more subtle political strategies which blame ethnic
minorities, asylum seekers or immigrants for a nation's ills.
In the UK the government was right to react to the Lawrence enquiry with a
Race Bill of which we can be historically proud. We must hope and campaign to
ensure that Europe backs rhetoric with real action. A strong article 13 and an
insistence that membership of the EU means an equal treatment of minorities,
would be a fitting start to an enlarged EU which has a moral dimension.
Claude Moraes is a Labour MEP for London
cmoraes@europarl.eu.int
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