Poverty is a violation of Fundamental Rights.
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

1/ The European Charter of Fundamental Rights sets out the basic rights that must be respected both by the European Union and the Member States when implementing EU law.

The European Charter of Fundamental Rights is a legally binding instrument that was drawn up in order to expressly recognise, and give visibility to, the role of fundamental rights in the legal order of the Union.

European Parliament has focused in particular on the issue of codifying Fundamental Rights in a legally binding document. In 1994, it drew up a list of the Fundamental Rights guaranteed by the Union. It placed special emphasis on the drafting of the Charter by making it ‘one of its constitutional priorities’ and stipulating the requirements to be met. In particular:

  • The European Charter needed to be given fully binding legal status by incorporating it into the TEU (“A Charter […] constituting merely a non-binding declaration and […] doing no more than merely listing existing rights would disappoint citizens’ legitimate expectations”); European Parliament thus called for the Charter to be incorporated into the Treaty of Nice and the new Constitutional Treaty ;
  • Fundamental Rights needed to be recognised as indivisible, by making the European Charter applicable to all the institutions, bodies and policies of the EU, including those under the second and third pillars, in the context of the powers and functions conferred upon it by the Treaties.

European Parliament has regularly called for the EU to accede to the ECHR, stressing that this would not duplicate the role of the now binding Charter. It called several times for the establishment of the European Agency for Fundamental Rights.

In two resolutions in 2014, Parliament also called for the creation of a ‘Copenhagen mechanism’, which would constitute a more efficient tool to ensure that Member States fully respect the fundamental values of the Union and the requirements of Democracy and the Rule of Law.

On 25 October 2016, European Parliament adopted a resolution with recommendations to the Commission on the establishment of an EU mechanism on Democracy, the Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights.

2/ Work must provide full access to Fundamental Rights.

Each situation of Poverty, despite a full-time work as described in this article below, is a violation of Fundamental Rights.

The Associations in charge of helping people in precarious situations, without public subsidies, have a heavy burden.

Poverty, because of a lack of access to housing, a lack of access to health, a lack of access to work or vocational training, is always a violation of Fundamental Rights in itself.

Learn more about poor workers : https://www.lemonde.fr

Learn more about the Charter of Fundamental Rights The Charter of Fundamental Rights