Luxembourg, 5 April 2022
The Council today approved an amendment to the regulation establishing the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights. This text aims to enhance the agency’s mandate and improve its functioning through more efficient procedures.
The regulation includes in the agency’s remit the area of police cooperation and judicial cooperation in criminal matters, to align its mandate with the Lisbon Treaty. It maintains the current situation as regards the Common Foreign and Security Policy, which remains outside the agency’s remit. Finally, the current multiannual framework to define the agency’s work programme will be replaced with a more operational annual and multiannual programming.
Background
The mandate of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights is set out in a 2007 Council regulation. In June 2020 the Commission presented a proposal to adapt the agency’s mandate to the Lisbon Treaty and to bring the regulation in line with the common approach on decentralised agencies.
The text is a Council regulation based on Article 352 TFEU, which requires unanimity for adoption by the Council, once the European Parliament has given its consent to the text.