Irish and British representatives clashed here yesterday over abortion during a debate on a proposed "right to life" wording in a draft EU charter of fundamental rights.
Mr Michael O'Kennedy TD, the Government's representative, intervened to reject warnings from Britain's Lord Peter Goldsmith and Holland's Mr Michel Patijn that the proposed text could put in question abortion and euthanasia provisions in some member-states.
Mr O'Kennedy also proposed an amendment to the draft charter which would delete a reference to children's rights to be heard in matters concerning them, in favour of a provision which simply asserts that the authorities must act in the best interests of the child. Mr O'Kennedy said that "operationalising" children's rights to be heard was problematic. The 62-member convention, representing member-states, MEPs, national parliaments, and the Commission, was debating a first full draft of the charter whose completion has been commissioned by heads of government for their December summit. The intention is to produce a citizen-friendly document which can express the coming of age politically of the European Union in terms of individual rights.
But the process is slow and complex, with fundamental unresolved differences between delegates over the final legal status of the charter dogging the convention's work with procedural disputes.
Yesterday delegates complained bitterly that they were supposed to have considered overnight some 600 amendments to the draft in 800 pages of text. A ruling from the chair that they should proceed was carried by only a small margin.
The preliminary draft was produced by the convention's presidium, chaired by the former German president, Mr Roman Herzog, and will form part of a progress report to the Feira summit in Portugal in two weeks' time.
Many delegates hope that heads of state there will be able to simplify the convention's task by deciding definitively that the charter will only be declaratory in nature. A compromise may lie in a decision to reflect an aspiration eventually to incorporate the charter in the treaty.
A meeting this weekend in Portugal of the 15 member-state representatives at the convention should help to clarify the issue.
During yesterday's debate on the 22 amendments to draft Article 2 - as far as delegates got - Lord Goldsmith complained that the text proposed (2.1), "Everyone has the right to life", was a departure from the language of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which specifies that "everyone's right to life shall be protected by law".
The new text, which was more absolutist, could be interpreted by the European Court of Justice as conferring new rights on the unborn, he said, insisting that the convention should in principle stick as closely to existing rights as possible. Indeed the British have insisted in general that the convention's role is minimalist and simply to enumerate existing rights.
Mr O'Kennedy said that the draft text represented a compromise which they should accept.
Other amendments to the draft refer more controversially of the right to life "from the beginning until natural death" or "from conception to the end of life".
Mr O'Kennedy also intervened in Monday's debate on social rights to call for provisions which would help to safeguard memberstates from environmental degradation from their neighbours.
While most rights being included in the charter stem directly from those in the ECHR or the European Social Charter, the draft also elaborates a number of new rights such as that to environmental sustainability. These include rights relating to new technology such as prohibitions on eugenic practices or cloning, protection for patients' informed consent, and data privacy.
Novel elements also include protection of family life, children's rights, access to documents, and the right to prompt and fair treatment from the administration, and the right to form political parties.
Apart from a huge variety of wordings for each of the charter's rights major differences still exist over whether they should apply just to the EU institutions or also to member-states when implementing EU policies.
And, controversially, in simplifying the language of the charter, the presidium has proposed that where rights are subject to qualification, such as the case of the death penalty in times of war or limitations on free speech, this can be done by a simple catch-all clause. That would allow rights to be circumscribed only by law and only to the extent allowed by the ECHR, which remains a minimum safety net.
The British have argued that each qualification of a right should be listed individually and in detail in a second part to the charter.