From EUMC to EUFRA

Your report "EU Agency for Fundamental Rights" (The Sunday Times, April 1) explained that from March 1 the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) became the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, with a fuller remit. We all welcome the objectives of the new organisation. However, I hope that its working methods will be more transparent and less one-sided than those of its predecessor.

The EUMC was organised round the European Information Network on Racism and Xenophobia, known as RAXEN (see www.eumc.eu.int). Each EU country had a national focal point remunerated to collect and co-ordinate information. These focal points had various backgrounds. They included Warwick University (UK), the Cyprus Labour Institute, the European Forum for Migration Studies (Germany) and Co-operation for Development of Emerging Countries (Italy). In Malta alone the focal point was a religious organisation, the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice (www.jesuit.org.mt).

According to a The Times report, "EU-commissioned report notes growing xenophobia" (March 11, 2006), the 2004 RAXEN report on Malta was drawn up by the Jesuit Centre for Faith and Justice and presented at a news conference by Fr Paul Pace, director of the Jesuit Refugee Service. What is the difference in membership and working methods between the two Jesuit bodies? The Maltese members on EUMC's management board were Duncan Borg Myatt and Claire Zarb (www.eumc.eu.int). Who appointed them and whom did they represent?

Can we hope that the new EU Fundamental Rights Agency will focus on the human rights of all Maltese citizens (about 400,000 of us) and not just on those of a few thousand foreigners, most of whom entered Malta illegally? Furthermore, could Malta be represented on the agency by some impartial person, like the Ombudsman, rather than by militant and unrepresentative NGOs?