Mid-term revision of Daphne Programme 2000-2003

The committee unanimously adopted the own-initiative report by María Antonia AVILES PEREA (EPP-ED, E) on the mid-term review of the DAPHNE programme (2000-2003). The report made a positive assessment of the way the programme was carried out in 2000 and 2001, endorsed the priorities that had been laid down for its areas of activity and said that the programme should continue beyond 2003. However, the committee regarded the budget for the programme as insufficient and wanted it to be increased for the subsequent period, including appropriate funding to reflect the full involvement of the applicant countries. It pointed out that in 2002 Parliament added EUR 1 million to the Daphne budget to finance measures against paedophilia and female genital mutilation. It also called for particular attention to be paid to areas such as the prevention of violence and the treatment and rehabilitation of aggressors, and proposed that educational programmes be implemented in schools and in adult educational institutions. The Commission was urged to organise a European year of action against violence. The committee also called for greater attention to be devoted to the role played by the media. Other recommendations included a call for the Council and the Member States to introduce, in certain cases, the right to evict a violent spouse or partner from the home as well as flanking measures on how to treat victims and their aggressors. The Council was also asked to adopt the framework decision, adopted by Parliament in 2001, on combating the sexual exploitation of children and child pornography. The Council and the Member States were further urged to improve the implementation and monitoring of existing laws and international conventions and to deem all forms of violence to be punishble under criminal law. The Commission, in its turn, was asked to carry out careful monitoring in the applicant countries of the Community 'acquis' concerning action to combat violence. Lastly, the committee reiterated its belief that action at EU level to combat violence as an infringement of human rights required a more appropriate legal basis than Article 152 of the EC Treaty (concerning public health). It accordingly called on the members of the European Convention on the future of the EU to propose that a special legal basis to combat sex-specific violence be included in the Treaties. �