The European Union launched an agency for fundamental rights on Thursday to help tackle rising racism and intolerance and prevent any member state from becoming a haven for violent hate-mongers.
Fifty years after its founding treaty, terrorism and growing immigration from poor developing nations have shaken the EU's democratic ethos and meant it can no longer rest on its old laurels of post-war peace and prosperity, EU officials said.
The new EU Agency for Fundamental Rights would help EU institutions and governments harmonise legislation and law enforcement, analyse disparate data on xenophobia, and raise public awareness by involving grassroots civic groups.
It will replace an EU racism monitoring centre with a broader remit, targeting not just burgeoning Islamophobia and resurgent anti-Semitism but also abuses such as female genital mutilation and forced marriages among African and Islamic immigrants, as well as unjust arrests and prison maltreatment.
Citing an anti-Semitic arson attack on a Jewish nursery school in Berlin last weekend, the EU commissioner for justice, freedom and security said the new agency was addressing a rising threat to the EU's core values of democracy and equal rights.
"Our original dream was no more than economic growth and no more wars. Now we cannot afford to be just an economic space. We must become a moral entity, to protect human beings themselves," Franco Frattini told reporters after a launch ceremony. Frattini stressed the new agency would not be "a super prosecutor or super judge or European tribunal, naming and blaming member states". But he said its future reports could mention states found wanting in upholding minority rights.