27.3.2004   

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

CE 78/601


(2004/C 78 E/0636)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3700/03

by Marco Pannella (NI), Maurizio Turco (NI), Marco Cappato (NI), Gianfranco Dell'Alba (NI), Benedetto Della Vedova (NI) and Olivier Dupuis (NI) to the Commission

(10 December 2003)

Subject:   Withholding of a study on anti-Semitism in Europe by the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC)

Knowing that:

on 22 November 2003 the Financial Times published on its front page a report to the effect that the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) had withheld a 112-page report on anti-Semitism in Europe which the Monitoring Centre itself had commissioned in 2002 from Berlin University's Centre for Research into Anti-Semitism;

the Director of the Monitoring Centre, Beate Winkler, has stated that the decision not to publish the research was based partly on the fact that the period selected for consideration (May and June 2002) was not deemed representative and partly on the irreconcilable differences of opinion between the Monitoring Centre and the Berlin Research Centre concerning the concept of anti-Semitism.

Would the Commission say:

why a report which furthers understanding of the way in which forms of anti-Semitism develop has been withheld from the people of the EU?

what differences of opinion have arisen between the Monitoring Centre and the Berlin Research Centre concerning the concept of anti-Semitism?

why the Eurobarometer survey (which was not based on scientific criteria) was published immediately (with consequences which are known to all), whereas the Monitoring Centre's report was kept secret?

whether the Commission's representative to the EUMC was informed of the decision not to disclose the report?

Joint answer

to Written Questions E-3585/03, E-3587/03, E-3607/03 and E-3700/03

given by Mrs Diamantopoulou on behalf of the Commission

(30 January 2004)

The Commission would refer the Honourable Members to the reply it gave to written question P-3693/03 by Mr Laschet (1).


(1)  See page 313.