(2004/C 84 E/0284)

WRITTEN QUESTION E-3441/03

by Koenraad Dillen (NI) to the Council

(20 November 2003)

Subject:   EU action against the Guantánamo Bay prison

The European Parliament has asked the current President of the Council, the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, to protest to Washington about the imprisonment of EU residents at the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. 26 EU residents are being held at Camp X-Ray. This prison holds people who have been arrested in connection with the war on terrorism since 11 September.

Does the Council know exactly what offences these 26 detainees are accused of?

Do not national governments have a responsibility to help safeguard the legal rights of their nationals in foreign prisons?

Can the Council provide a list of other EU residents who are being held in other non-European prisons for political reasons or in connection with criminal offences? Does the Council also keep abreast of their situation? How, specifically, does the Council go about this? To what results has it led in the past?

Reply

(11 March 2004)

The Council is not in a position to provide details of the offences for which any detainees are currently being held in Guantánamo Bay.

As the Council has previously stated in its replies to Written Questions E-1420/03 and E-2444/03, the protection of the rights and interests of Member States' nationals abroad pursuant to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations is the responsibility of the individual Member States concerned, whether the individuals involved are being held in Guantánamo Bay or elsewhere.

For this reason, the Council does not maintain any list of the type to which the question refers. If a Member State chooses to bring the case of detention of one of its nationals abroad to the attention of the other Member States and requests assistance from the EU in lobbying for his/her release, then the relevant Council Working Group may agree to the Presidency's instructing the EU Heads of Mission in the third country concerned to carry out an appropriate démarche, confidential or otherwise, or to the EU Troika raising the matter in a political dialogue meeting with the third country concerned, where relevant. In such cases, the Presidency normally keeps the Member States informed of the outcome of the démarche or discussion and any follow-up thereto. Such approaches have been successful in some cases in achieving the desired result.