Times: 'Rights' and values in the European Union

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080710/letters/rights-and-values-in-the-european-union
Thursday, 10th July 2008, Evarist Saliba, Ta' l-Ibraġ

I have read the short report Europe Going Through Crises Of Values (July 7) in which the Bishop of Gozo, Mgr Mario Grech, lamented that the European Community is denying universal and absolute values on which it is built. I could not but contrast it with the far longer report entitled Maltese Law "Discriminates" On Same-Sex Partners carried prominently on the front page of The Times on July 1. This was convenient timing to suit the imminent gay parade. Was this a coincidence or a planned strategy?

If the EU Fundamental Rights Agency is truly concerned about discrimination of this type, why does it not mention the "rights" of those who practise polygamy and polyandry? Is it because it believes that some are more equal than others, or is it because it is following a specific agenda?

Since I have not read the report in question it could be that it is the reporter who introduced the bias, but I have my doubts.

Perhaps our Europarliamentarians could illuminate the public on the standing of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency. The press report gives the impression that this agency has the right to censure member states for not implementing laws which it considers indispensible, when the EU itself is not competent to impose on its members laws on same-sex unions. Is this a case of pushing in through the window what is not permissable to pass through the door? Could this be one of the fears that the EU Brussels bureaucracy, in its widest sense, is sowing among great sections of the people of Europe?