European Property Rights and Wrongs - Diana Wallis MEP

the issues confronting citizens. Sometimes we are able to provoke action against
a Member State or to instigate a possible policy change or new legislation. The
Commission is obliged to investigate and where appropriate take action. Thus
with the problems in Spain, which are enumerated later, the Commission investigated
potential breaches of EU environmental law, and more recently actually
took action before the Court of Justice in relation to potential public procurement
issues, albeit finally unsuccessfully 11 .
What remains elusive is the potential of the European Union to act where
there are apparent breaches of human rights in relation to the right to property, as
specified in Article I of Protocol I of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The expectation was that this impasse would be unblocked with the entry into
force of the Treaty of Lisbon and the EU’s direct adherence to the ECHR. However,
these new developments seem still to be interpreted in a narrow way which says
the the EU can only enforce human rights issues against Member States when
they relate to EU law whereas, of course, most property or planning issues stem
from national law and therefore the remedy has to be sought in national courts
and ultimately at the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights rather than in Brussels
or Luxembourg. All this is rightly infuriating to the citizens or group of citizens
threatened with losing their home; when if they had thought Europe was about
anything, they thought is was about guaranteeing certain fundamental rights.
The following contributions set out some of the experiences of various groups
in approaching the European Parliament and working with parliamentarians.
How citizens have organized
to defend their property rights
Groups of residents have organized together to campaign, lobby and publicise
their particular issues. The groups that have grown up also show support and
solidarity for neighbours who are from many different Member States. Often the
ex-pat communities demonstrate the advantages of being a true European citizen
living and working and contributing to the local community alongside people
from all over the EU. Many groups often have a large domestic support base,
11 Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 26 May 2011 — European Commission v
Kingdom of Spain (C-306/08 )
17