Senior European Union officials confirmed yesterday that Britain's "red line" opt-out from the European Charter of Fundamental Rights is not worth the paper it is written on.
| The European Commission Vice-President insisted that the charter will apply to huge swathes of British law |
Margot Wallström, the European Commission Vice-President, insisted that the charter will apply to huge swathes of British law, the 75 per cent or more that is derived from EU legislation. "Citizens will be able to claim before the courts the rights enshrined in the Charter," she said. "The Charter will be binding for the European institutions, and also for member states when they implement EU law, even if it does not apply to all of them."
Sensitive national legislation, such as Britain's opt-out on a Brussels directive that sets the length of the working week will, officials predict, be challenged in the EU courts because it implements European laws. The commission's legal service estimates that British opt-outs to the charter are "limited" and point to German studies showing that up to 80 per cent of national law originates in Brussels.
"The charter will test some member states applying European law and to what extent a UK judge can be alien to this jurisprudence elsewhere is unclear," said a legal source. "The opt-out is potentially very thin."
If the EU Treaty mandate agreed by Tony Blair is ratified, Gordon Brown will quickly find the charter, including a "right to strike", becoming enforceable in the European courts as trade unions seek to roll back Margaret Thatcher's reforms of the 1980s.
| Euro-MPs are planning to sponsor early challenges to Britain's opt-outs. |
A senior European Parliament source, close to negotiations on the new EU Treaty, has told The Daily Telegraph that Euro-MPs are planning to sponsor early challenges to Britain's opt-outs. "We are going to make sure that this issue is constantly before the European Court of Justice," he said. "There is 30 years of EU jurisprudence to say there can be no two-tier system of European rights."
Research by the think-tank Open Europe suggests that EU judges will not be backward in coming forward to apply the charter.
| The (European) Court of Justice will decide for itself whether member states are implementing European law and interpret their national laws for them |
"The Court of Justice will decide for itself whether member states are implementing European law and interpret their national laws for them," said Neil O'Brien, Open Europe's director. "Trying to stop the charter changing our laws will be like trying to carry water in a sieve." |