Sittings · Document
Follow up to the European Parliament non-legislative resolution on including the right to abortion in the EU Fundamental Rights Charter
Resolution tabled pursuant to Rule 132(2) of the European Parliament's Rules of procedure
Reference numbers: 2024/2655 (RSP) / B9-0205/2024 / P9_TA(2024)0286
Date of adoption of the resolution: 11 April 2024
Competent Parliamentary Committee: N/A
Brief analysis/ assessment of the resolution and requests made in it:
In a resolution adopted with 336 votes in favour, 163 against and 39 abstentions, the European Parliament urges the Council to add sexual and reproductive healthcare and the right to a safe and legal abortion to the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The Parliament condemns the backsliding on women’s rights and all attempts to restrict or remove existing protections for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and gender equality taking place globally, including in the EU Member States.
The European Parliament wants Article 3 of the Charter to be amended by the European Council to state that ‘everyone has the right to bodily autonomy, to free, informed, full and universal access to SRHR, and to all related healthcare services without discrimination, including access to safe and legal abortion’.
The text urges the Member States to fully decriminalise abortion in line with the 2022 guidelines of the World Health Organization (WHO), and to remove and combat obstacles to abortion, calling on Poland and Malta to repeal their laws and other measures that ban and restrict it. The Parliament condemns the fact that, in some Member States, abortion is being denied by medical practitioners, and in some cases by entire medical institutions, on the basis of a ‘conscience’ clause, often in situations where any delay will endanger the patient’s life or health.
The resolution recommends that the Commission and the European Union, make use of all available tools to ensure that organisations working against gender equality and women’s rights including reproductive rights do not receive EU funding.
The EU and the Member States should ensure and politically support an enabling civic space in the EU through a civil society strategy, to ensure the protection of women and SRHR human rights defenders through a protection mechanism for human rights defenders and to support them financially, notably through the Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programme. Furthermore, the EU should act as an advocate and make the recognition of this right a key priority in negotiations within international institutions and in other multilateral forums such as the Council of Europe and the UN, and lastly the EU should ratify the European Convention on Human Rights.
Response to the requests in the resolution and overview of the action taken, or intended to be taken, by the Commission:
The Commission stresses that ensuring the full enjoyment of sexual and reproductive health and rights means protecting women’s and girls’ bodily integrity, freedom from discrimination, coercion and violence. The Commission underlines the importance of the protection and fulfilment of autonomy in decision-making, as well as the informed consent and confidentiality in relation to all health services.
Paragraph 5
Concerning the call on the Commission to make use of all available tools to ensure that organisations working against gender equality and women’s rights including reproductive rights do not receive EU funding, under the CERV and Justice programmes managed by the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (DG JUST) and the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA), the check on whether the applicants comply with the EU values enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and in Article 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (the Charter) is carried on all proposals for grants. This assessment of the applicants’ and proposals’ adherence to EU values is carried out by Commission staff and external experts who support the Commission in the proposals’ evaluation in different stages of the assessment. The aim of these assessments is to detect potential issues pointing out to applicants’ non-compliance with EU values, including values not compatible with women’s rights as enshrined in Article 2 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) and Article 21 of the Charter. In this way, the Commission ensures that EU funds do not end up benefitting persons or organisations that are found to be in non-compliance with EU values. In case of a negative assessment, a proposal is refused access to funding.
Furthermore, the Financial Regulation and the pre-contractual and contractual framework for grants require the Commission to ensure at all stages (pre-signature, implementation, ex-post checks) that organisations and proposals selected for funding/ projects incompatible with EU values do not receive EU funding. These rules enable authorising officers to take measures when a breach of EU values, which amounts to grave professional misconduct or as a breach of contractual obligations, is identified.
The Model Grant Agreement moreover contains an obligation for the beneficiaries to respect EU values. This also extends to other persons and entities linked to the beneficiaries, such as the affiliated entities, associated partners, subcontractors, and recipients of financial support to third parties.
If a breach of EU values is identified during the implementation of the legal commitment, the Commission must take appropriate measures, such as the suspension of payment, termination of the grant agreement or of the participation of the concerned beneficiary, grant reduction, cost rejection, or the launch of a procedure for administrative measures under the Early Detection and Exclusion System, if the breach would fall under one of the exclusion situations listed under Article 136(1) of the Financial Regulation.
The 2024 Financial Regulation recast will reinforce the current framework of the Early Detection and Exclusion System, including through the introduction of a specific ground of exclusion under grave professional misconduct. This ground refers to incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence against a group of persons or a member of a group, or similar activities that are contrary to the values enshrined in Article 2 TEU, where such misconduct has an impact on the person or entity’s integrity which negatively affects or concretely risks affecting the performance of the legal commitment.
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Regarding the call for the EU to, together with Member States, ensure and politically support an enabling civic space in the EU through a civil society strategy, to ensure the protection of women and SRHR human rights defenders through a protection mechanism for human rights defenders and to support them financially, notably through the CERV programme, the Commission shares the view that civil society organisations and human rights defenders play an important role, both as regards their work in the field of SRHR and more broadly. The Commission shares the concerns on the global backsliding on women’s and girls’ rights and deplores the shrinking civic space, notably for women’s rights organisations. Thanks to the initiatives launched notably under the Union values strand of the CERV programme, substantive amounts have been dedicated to support regional and/ or national civil society organisations (CSOs) across the EU, which defend, promote and raise awareness of fundamental rights and of EU values.
Furthermore, in its 2020 Strategy to strengthen the application of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, the Commission noted that civil society organisations and human rights defenders are vital for a healthy democracy and a society where people can enjoy their fundamental rights. It acknowledged that civil society organisations and human rights defenders should be able to work without fear in a supportive environment.
The CERV programme is the largest EU funding programme dedicated to promoting and supporting actions on democracy, equality, fundamental rights, and the rule of law within the EU. The 2023-2024 CERV work programme covers a range of activities to build the capacity of civil society organisations to ensure that the Charter is upheld.
Following the 2022 CERV Union values call for proposals, EUR 51 million were allocated to 16 projects led by (consortia of) large CSO intermediaries with the aim to re-grant most of the funds to grass-roots organisations across the EU and to carry out dedicated capacity-building activities for these organisations. The intermediaries put in place simplified calls and selection procedures and gave priority to small, remote and rural based organisations (which tend to have more limited capacity and funding sources). Therefore, for these CSOs, promoting the principles of the rule of law, fundamental rights and democracy, access to funding has been largely improved. Support has also been provided to grassroot CSOs that face backlash and attacks because of their work to promote gender equality.
The 2024 Union values call for proposals was launched in October 2023, with the budget of EUR 74.5 million. In order to streamline the funding efforts and increase sustainability, the call allowed longer (up to 48 months duration) and larger (up to EUR 6 million of EU contribution per proposal) projects. The call closed on 7 March 2024 and the evaluation of the 76 submitted proposals is currently on-going. It is expected that the selected projects will start by the end of 2024/ beginning of 2025.
The CERV Union values strand also supports, via three- or four-year framework partnership agreements and annual operating grants (dedicated to the organisations’ core support), some 70 European networks, civil society organisations active at EU level and European think tanks in the following thematic areas:
promoting and protecting Union values;
promoting equality, preventing and combating discrimination;
promoting gender equality;
combating racism, xenophobia and all forms of intolerance;
protecting and promoting the rights of the child;
promoting European remembrance;
promoting citizen engagement;
preventing and combating gender-based violence;
preventing and combating violence against children.
Some EUR 34 million are available for these annual operating grants.
Moreover, in 2022, the Commission published its annual report on the application of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights on ‘A thriving civic space for upholding fundamental rights in the EU’. This Charter report mapped the state of the civic space in the EU and identified gaps and challenges, while recognising the value of the work of civil society organisations and human rights defenders in upholding fundamental rights. Following the Charter report, endorsed by the Council in March 2023, the Commission organised in November 2023 three thematic seminars and a closing conference (with the Spanish Presidency) on safeguarding an open and enabling civic space in the EU.
Measures to further support and empower civil society have been taken, notably with the adoption, on 12 December 2023, of a Commission Recommendation on promoting the effective participation of citizens and civil society organisations to public policy-making processes as part of the ‘Defence of Democracy’ package.
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Regarding the call for the EU to act as an advocate and make the recognition of this right a key priority in negotiations within international institutions and in other multilateral forums such as the Council of Europe and the UN, and the call for the EU to ratify the European Convention on Human Rights, the EU supports gender equality and sexual and reproductive health and rights through a range of interventions at bilateral, regional and global levels.
At the global level, the EU partners closely with the United Nations Population Fund and civil society actors. The approach in the external sphere is outlined in the Action Plan on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in External Relations 2021–2027 (GAP III).
In international fora, the EU is committed to the implementation of and continues advocating for the obligations in the area of women’s rights arising from the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Beijing Platform for Action, the Cairo Declaration on Population and Development (ICPD) and their respective outcome reviews.