The Committee on Civil Liberties unanimously adopted the draft legislative resolution on the
creation of a European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia. The rapporteur, Mr Ford
(PSE, UK) opened by stating that Parliament agreed with the broad outlines of the proposal in
question, which responded to calls and recommendations in several resolutions adopted, the most
recent of which dated back to 30 January 1997. He then set out the objectives and functions of
the monitoring centre which, far from confining itself to coordinating the information activities
of the competent national structures, also needed to exercise active control and conduct analyses
in order to draw up conclusions and recommendations on good practices and tried and tested
strategies which have marked developments in this sector. The rapporteur mentioned some of the
priority areas of responsibility of the centre, including xenophobia relating to religious practices
and, in very general terms, the preventive means and types of action needed. As far as
cooperation with the Council of Europe was concerned, the draft report noted, inter alia, that
duplication should be avoided and considered that the Union should focus as a matter of priority
on the situation in the fifteen Member States. As for the structure, staff and costs, the
rapporteur's appraisal coincided for the most part with the Commission's proposals. However, he
expressly called for the management board of the centre to be chaired by the Commission
representative and for a representative of Parliament (but not a member) to sit on the executive
board on an equal footing with the Council of Europe and stressed that it was up to Parliament,
as the branch of the budgetary authority, and not the management board, to give discharge to the
director in accordance with the general procedure set out in Article 206 of the EC Treaty. While
approving the small staff structure (25 agents) and the corresponding cost estimate, the
rapporteur envisaged the possibility of concluding fixed-term contracts and recruiting staff on
secondment from specialist bodies inside or outside the Union, in order to ensure that specific
objectives were set and work was continuous and proactive. The draft report contains no
comment on the legal basis for the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction
(Article 235) but does insist on transparency and for the budgetary authorities to have the means
of control of the financial management. �