The story of how values like dignity, equality and solidarity, held dear by Europeans, came to be enshrined in EU law.

History: EU Charter of Fundamental Rights

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/16348254/v001-0025-en.srt

are values that Europeans  take for granted today.

But they were incorporated  into European legislation only in 2000.

were involved in drawing up  the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

She was representing Parliament  and he was representing the Commission.

At a time when the EU was  moving towards becoming

a more substantial geographical unit  through enlargement,

beyond economic values  and the values of the market,

there was this feeling that we needed  to give substance to our common values

in terms of  what the EU was going to become.

There was also a desire  to provide the EU's constitutional treaties

with a bill of rights,  a list of fundamental rights.

Already in 1950 the Council of Europe's  European Convention on Human Rights

had listed many civil and political rights.

the then 15 EU heads of state and  government decided to go further.

Six months later, the Convention for  drafting this Charter met for the first time.

Until then, the traditional way of drafting  Community law, substantive law of the EU,

was negotiation between the governments,  which could then be ratified

or on which Parliament at the time  gave its opinion.

Negotiations between Member States  took place behind closed doors.

We needed to find  more democratic legitimacy

resulting not only from the transparency  and openness of the Convention's workings

but also, very importantly, from the  presence of the European Parliament -

with full powers,  not just as an observer -

and, above all, of the national  parliaments. It was a first.

At the negotiating table sat representatives  of the main EU and national political bodies.

15 for the 15 Member States,  one for the European Commission,

They set to work but reached a deadlock  over the question of social rights.

Because some countries have  real social rights

that are enforceable in the same way  as civil and political rights,

but in other countries these social rights  are programmatic standards

that don't have direct enforceability  or binding power.

Gender equality, children's rights  and other still more elusive rights

were finally incorporated  as fundamental European rights.

There's also a nice article on trade union  freedom, on the right to strike,

which was, as you might expect,  very difficult to negotiate,

as well as references  concerning access to housing.

The Convention submitted a draft Charter  to the heads of state in under a year.

The heads of state  and governments thought

and that,  I'm caricaturing them a bit here,

To a certain extent  I think a lot of people believed

we wouldn't reach our goal,  that it was just a talking shop.

I think the best tribute  the Member States paid the Convention

was that the debate didn't address  the contents of the Charter

A simple political declaration  or a legal text with binding force?

Without a unanimous agreement  by Member States

the Charter was not initially  binding, at least officially.

Even before the Charter  was incorporated into the Treaty,

the constitutional courts  of several Member States

and even the Advocates-General  at the Court of Justice of the EU

started to refer  to the Charter of Fundamental Rights,

which wasn't yet a legally binding text.

In 2007 the Charter  gained official recognition.

It was now part of the Treaty of Lisbon.

However, three countries placed  restrictions on social rights:

the United Kingdom first, followed  by Poland and the Czech Republic.