Daphne II programme 2004-2008: combating violence against children, young people and women

In adopting its common position, the Council gave its unanimous support to the continuation of the DAPHNE programme for a second phase, from 2004 to the end of 2008, which it considers will contribute to the general objective of providing citizens with a high of protection against violence, including the protection of their physical and mental health. The Council has accepted the main objectives both of the Commission's proposal and the European Parliament's amendments, including the increase in budget to EUR 50 million requested by the European Parliament. The main modifications of the common position, as compared to the Commission's amended proposal concern the measures to be taken by the Commission within the budgetary procedures to ensure the consistency of the budget with the financial perspectives for the period beyond 2006. The Parliament adopted 40 amendments at first reading. The amendments made by the Parliament which were not taken on board by the Commission or the Council concern the following issues: - singling out specific categories of beneficiaries/victims, such as girls, young women or street children, go against the general philosophy of the programme to maintain a neutral approach on terms of categories; - those amendments which are not in conformity with the currently agreed comitology procedures as laid down out in Decision 1999/468/EC of the European Parliament and Council; - increasing the scope or the responsibilities of the programme in such a way as to dilute its impact, with the additional risk that the human and financial resources provided for would be sufficient; - those which are not pertinent to the content of the programme or duplicate other provisions. The Commission accepted 19 of the Parliament's amendments in their entirety. The Council also accepted all of these amendments, but modified the wording of two of the amendments to clarify the situation with regard to the new financial perspective from 2007. In view of the importance of this programme in the fight against violence and in the interests of rapid adoption of the Decision, the Council accepted the increase in the budget to EUR 50 million requested by the Parliament and accepted by the Commission. Moreover, the Council has specified in its common position that EUR 29 million of the total budget of EUR 50 million is for the period until 31 December 2006. The Council also incorporated the substance of an amendment stating that the Commission should hold the responsibility for ensuring that any result or product funded by this programme was made available free of charge and in electronic format. Apart from the number of editorial changes to clarify the meaning of the text, the Council has made the following changes to the Commission's amended proposal : - title : change the title of the programme to include the concept of combating violence as well as its prevention (" a programme of Community action (2004-2008) to prevent and combat violence against children, young people and women"). This concept has been included, as appropriate throughout the text; - Articles 2(1) and 4(g) : extension of the programme objectivesand activities to include addressing the question of perpetrators and their need for treatment, whilst at the same time ensuring the safety of victims and children; - Article 3(2) : alignment of the wording regarding participation in the programme to take into account the Treaty of Accession of 16 April 2003; - Article 4(f) : addition of a reference to supporting children and young people who witness domestic violence; - Article 4(i) and Annex I, point 5 : addition of activities contributing to positive treatment for people vulnerable to violence; - Article 6(3) : deletion of paragraph 3 which reserved a share of the annual budget for large-scale projects as this was considered to be at the expense of the smaller non-governmental organisations; - Articles 6(4), 6(4a) and 7 : return to the mixed committee procedure (Management/Advisory) of the DAPHNE I programme, as this was judged to have worked well during the implementation of the original programme; - Annex I, points 1(c) and 2(a) : in the context of protecting the best interests of children, addition of a reference to protecting particularly those who are victims of prostitution and to undertaking studies in this area with a view to preventing this phenomenon; - Annex I, point 7(a) : inclusion of "youth" workers in the list of specific professions that could be the target of information and awareness-raising activities. In conclusion, as the Council was able to accept practically the entirety of the amendments of the European Parliament which had been taken up by the Commission in its amended proposal, it considers that the text of the common position meets the fundamental objectives of the Commission's proposal and those that the European Parliament had in mind when proposing its amendments.�