Ms Iverna McGowan:

In general the EU already has many tools at its disposal. I will be concrete with the example of the Roma people. There is a race equality directive. The Commission could bring infringement procedures against certain states which are blatantly in violation of those directives. There is also political dialogue and it is working together with the Council of Europe in this regard. However, at the moment certain situations come outside the EU box and that is where the difficulty arises.

It is somewhat easier in external relations. There are still inconsistences and double standards in the application of European Union foreign policy but the guidelines are clear. This is what we request in the case of torture in a third country. There are guidelines on violence against women. That is one obvious example. There are guidelines on what we ask of a third country but within the European Union we do not have a coherent European-wide policy. There are practical steps we could take. The 27 member states could all agree to sign and ratify the Council of Europe's Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence. We have been advocating for some time for a strategy on violence against women throughout European Union member states. The idea is that when there is a human rights dialogue with a third country and a third country asks about the European Union position on violence against women there is a coherent response.

Reference was made to the Syria crisis. The best thing that could be done at the moment by member states is to ensure it does not happen again that the European Union is somewhat unsure about what it will say. There is great momentum at the moment. This was something for which we had been advocating for approximately 15 years at European level. It was always said that it was not the right forum and that there was no competency. During President Barroso's state of the Union 2012 speech he referred to the need for some kind of internal response. It is now being brought to the General Affairs Council. We hope to see it on the Justice and Home Affairs Council as well. At EU level there is already thinking about what an internal strategy on human rights might be. We have the external action plan that we have talked about implementing but the question is what the internal mechanism are.

There are 27 member states which all have other external human rights obligations under international treaties and their constitutions and obligations that arise directly from membership of the European Union. Frankly, to say we do not have the competence to do that does not really hold. In a concrete sense, it is important to have a serious look at ourselves, to be critical and to ensure that there is a place at EU level even within the club where these discussions are taken seriously. That would be a great step forward and something we would be keen to see with some momentum coming out of the Irish Presidency.