On December 7, from 9 am to 4:30 pm at the Negresco (free entry)
With the participation of Gaston Franco, Member of the European Parliament, Nicole Fontaine, professor at the University of Nice, President of the European Parliament (1999/2002), and Catherine Lalumière, Secretary General of the Council of Europe (1989/1994) and President of the French Federation of Houses of Europe. The day is hosted by Fabrice Lachenmaier, mayor of Mas, on the theme of the 10th anniversary of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union with the support of the General Council of Alpes-Maritimes, the Regional Council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, and the European Commission.
Exactly 10 years ago, on December 7, 2000, the European heads of state, gathered at a summit in Nice, developed a treaty considered one of the most flawed in the long series of its predecessors since the founding Treaty of Rome.
However, on the same day, they all agreed to give birth to a reference text for citizens’ rights: the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
In 54 articles and 6 chapters displaying our main shared values (dignity, freedom, equality, solidarity, citizenship, and justice), Europe equipped itself with a bold, universal tool inspired by, while updating, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights of 1950, and the European Social Charter of 1962.
It will take the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon for the Charter to finally acquire legally binding status.
But how long will it take for it to fully occupy the political space?
The Charter is not just another text… it constitutes a pillar of European citizenship as it forcefully reaffirms principles and values that will facilitate the “living together” of Europeans. It is now a moral obligation for local, regional, national, and European elected officials, associative leaders, media, and teachers to widely disseminate this text so that citizens can discover all its riches and fully embrace it.
For example, it would be relevant for the Charter poster, recently published by Idées Nouvelles Europe and distributed to French town halls with fewer than 100 inhabitants, to be displayed in all classrooms, for audiovisual media to broadcast short films on the Charter’s values, and for the Fundamental Rights Agency, created in 2007, to fulfill its mission of improving public awareness by collaborating with civil society and organizing major European events to promote the text.
Through this Charter, the European Union has decided to give meaning to citizenship, placing “the peoples of Europe”… “at the heart of the action” as indicated by the preamble.
To those who only saw in European construction an exclusive succession of economic interests, it is clear that it establishes the social dimension essential for the cohesion of the Europe group, at the heart of its development strategy.
