The European Fundamental Rights Agency is an agency of the European Union which was launched in Vienna on 1 March 2007. It is intended as a successor to the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). It will be an independent centre of expertise on fundamental rights issues through data collection, analysis and networking which has previously not existed at European Union level.
What will it do?
The Agency will advise the European Union Institutions and the Member States on how best to prepare or implement fundamental rights related to EU legislation. It's four main tasks, inspired by the so-called Paris Principles governing the tasks of national human rights institutions, will be information gathering, analysis, provision of advice, and information and communication.
Its' mandate is "collecting and analysing data on fundamental rights with reference to...all rights listed in the (European) Charter (of Fundamental Rights)". However, it is intended to focus particularly on "the thematic areas within the scope of Union law" (Source: Commission proposal SEC(2005)849). Its' primary working methods will be investigation, reports, provision of expert assistance to EU bodies, Member States, EU candidate countries and potential candidate countries, and the education of the public. It is not intended to intervene in individual cases, that being the remit of the European Court of Human Rights, but will rather be to investigate broad issues and trends.
AGE welcomes the establishment of the European Fundamental Rights Agency. In particular, we welcome its monitoring, documentation and broader information functions. We hope that the Agency will involve NGOs - including AGE - in their activities and that they will consult and seek feedback from us. We hope to see opportunities for NGOs to feed constructively into their work and for the civil society sector to be able to use this Agency as a reference point for information, for examples of best practice, and for data and specific details on case law and the development of jurisprudence in the human rights field. The litmus test will be the extent to which this is actually done.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 20 April 2010 11:09
