For long decades after its creation, mainly due to the originally economic nature of the European integration project, the European Union (EU) — and its predecessors — did not possess a self-standing, independent entity dealing with fundamental rights. Academic voices encouraged first, in the 1990s, the establishment of EU’s own human rights (monitoring) body with a view to adopting a more preventive approach to human rights protection (see, e.g., Alston and Weiler, 1999: 55-59). This suggestion was made to the “Comité des Sages” responsible for drafting a human rights agenda for the EU at the new millennium (Cassese et al., 1998: paras. 185-199), following the consolidation of the fundamental rights-related case law of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and the explicit recognition, for the first time, of the protection of such rights by the Treaty of Maastricht.

Setting up the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (hereinafter: “FRA” or “Agency”) did not occur in a complete legal-institutional vacuum though: FRA succeeded the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (“EUMC”) which had been operating in Vienna since 1997. Notwithstanding the existence of its forerunner, FRA’s creation was not the “outcome of any concerted political long-term strategy” (Toggenburg, 2018: 445). A telling example for that is that when discussing the reform of the EUMC, the European Commission was not favourable of transforming it into an across-the-board EU human rights agency — even if the September 2000 report of the “Three Wise Men” analysing “the commitment of the Austrian Government to the common European values, in particular relating to the rights of minorities, refugees and immigrants” recommended the creation of an EU Agency on Human Rights to contribute to the establishment “of a mechanism within the EU to monitor and evaluate the commitment and performance of individual Member States with respect to common European values” (Ahtisaari et al., 2001: para. 117).

Against this background, it was rather surprising when Member States later announced their intent, at the European Council meeting of December 2003, to establish a stand-alone EU Human Rights Agency. The idea of a “Human Rights Agency” was then also included in The Hague Programme adopted in November 2004. This EU-level strategic planning document aimed at strengthening the Union’s “area of freedom, security and justice” for 2005-2009.

Given that the establishment of FRA has not been initially envisaged in the EU founding Treaties and in the absence of a general fundamental rights competence of the EU, the so-called “flexibility clause”, set out in Art. 352 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), served as its legal basis under EU primary law. This clause allows the EU to unanimously legislate in areas not expressly covered by the founding Treaties, if necessary to attain its objectives.

Yet not all actors involved in the negotiations were interested in creating a strong EU body dealing with human rights. The Council of Europe (“CoE”) — which is the European continent’s leading human rights intergovernmental organization — had the most concerns over eventual duplications of mandate and unwanted competition between the two organisations (Steiner, 2006: 130-133; De Schutter, 2008: 509-512; De Schutter, 2009: 112-116; Pérez Bernárdez, 2015: 594-603; Kjaerum, 2020: 29). These dynamics and diverging interests led to significant changes to the Commission’s original proposal, which drew on the results of a prior large public consultation launched in October 2004 on the remit, rights and thematic areas, tasks and structure of the planned EU agency.

After more than two years of negotiations, in February 2007, the Council of the EU — acting unanimously under ex-Art. 308 of the Treaty establishing the European Community (TEC) (currently Art. 352 TFEU) and after having consulted the European Parliament — adopted FRA’s founding regulation. This is Council Regulation (EC) No. 168/2007 — hereinafter referred to as “FRA Regulation” or “founding regulation”. The FRA Regulation — which is legally binding and directly applicable in all EU Member States pursuant to Art. 288 TFEU — entered into force on 1 March 2007. This is also the date when the Agency officially started functioning, replacing the EUMC with a wider mandate covering all human rights (called “fundamental rights” in the EU’s parlance, as per Art. 6[3] of the Treaty on European Union [TEU] and as contained in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU [hereinafter: “the Charter”]). Still, the years 2007-2008 were rather transitional, with its first director only taking his office from June 2008 (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2012: 1).

After more than one decade of its existence, in view of increasing the Agency’s impact, technical amendments to the founding regulation were tabled in June 2020 and then adopted by the Council of the EU, also by unanimity as per Art. 352 TFEU, in April 2022. These amendments are contained in Regulation (EU) 2022/555. After 15 years of the Agency’s existence, the main reasons for such “facelifting” changes included aligning FRA’s founding regulation with the requirements of the EU’s 2012 Common Approach to decentralised agencies, improving governance, efficiency and performance of the Agency. Revamped rules also clarified that, since the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty (1 December 2009), FRA’s remit is EU law en bloc, including police cooperation and judicial cooperation in criminal matters. This corresponds to the prevailing scholarly views post-Lisbon, pursuant to which the structural changes brought by the Lisbon amendments (namely the abolition of the Union’s pillar structure) implicitly and automatically extended FRA’s purview to all areas of EU law, encompassing the ex-third pillar -former Title VI TEU- as well (Toggenburg, 2018: 450; Nowak and Müller-Funk, 2020: 215; De Schutter, 2020a: 7, 22).

Regulation (EC) No. 168/2007 established FRA as a European Union agency. There is no single, dedicated provision in the founding EU Treaties for creating Union agencies. Instead, EU agencies are established using specific sectoral policy provisions or the “flexibility clause” in Art. 352 TFEU.

Setting up FRA was a significant step for the furtherance of the international protection of human rights and its institutionalisation at regional (European) level. Due to FRA’s legal basis (i.e. a piece of secondary EU law, and not directly based on the EU founding Treaties, nor deriving its existence from an explicit authorisation therein), the Agency can be conceived as belonging to the “tertiary organisational structure” of the EU edifice (Schusterschitz, 2004: 165).

The Agency’s main objective is to provide fundamental rights expertise and assistance to EU institutions, bodies and agencies as well as EU Member States when implementing EU law. FRA uses the (empirical) evidence drawn from its research, paired with sound legal analysis, to formulate socio-legal advice for both the EU institutions and Member States in areas covered by EU law. The “evidence-based advice” can take a variety of forms and outputs, including reports (with recommendations), surveys, legal opinions, legal position papers, workshops or informal input to the EU institutions and agencies, etc. FRA is the only EU body that is solely and specifically tasked to deal with the protection of fundamental rights within the Union’s institutional architecture, covering the full spectrum of fundamental rights guaranteed under EU law. This EU centre of excellence or “beacon on fundamental rights” (Equal Voices, 2008: 4) has to “fulfil its tasks in complete independence”.

To meet the above general objective, FRA pursues three major functions. These are the following: 1) based on its own research, collection of data and provision of solid evidence, coupled with methodological advice to improve data comparability and quality; 2) policy advice at EU and national level, including expert (legal) opinions, technical assistance and capacity building; and 3) communication of rights and raising public awareness, also creating and engaging with various networks — with a view to promoting fundamental rights across the Union; a dimension which directly flows from Art. 51(1), second sentence, of the Charter.

It is to underline at this point that the Agency’s “beautiful” mandate (see similarly Morijn and Toggenburg, 2024: 4) is limited in several ways. First, it is entitled to deal with the situation of “fundamental rights” — as such rights are referred to in Art. 6(3) TEU and defined in the Charter — within the EU territory as a matter of principle —, acting in matters falling under EU competences. Not covering third states was also designed to avoid too much territorial overlap with scope of the Council of Europe and also due to the opposition of some Member States (Steiner, 2006: 138). The territorial limitation also means that the Agency’s scope of action cannot extend to activities falling under the common foreign and security policy (CFSP) — the former “second pillar” of the EU (Title V TEU).

Second, FRA’s founding regulation also makes it explicit that the Agency’s mandate is not to interfere with the powers of the European Commission: the Agency must not deal with the legality of acts of EU institutions within the meaning of Art. 263 TFEU [action for annulment]; or with the question of whether a Member State has failed to fulfil an obligation under EU law within the meaning of Art. 258 TFEU [infringement procedure]. At the same time, although the Agency has been precluded from reviewing the legality of pieces of secondary EU law — which is the CJEU’s prerogative —, it can be requested to take a position, i.e. to publish a legal opinion on the compatibility of tabled EU legislative proposals with fundamental rights law (see also under section VI below).

Until the 2022 reform, the Agency’s areas of activity were defined in a five-year Multiannual Framework, adopted by the Council of the EU. This is no longer the case: Council Decision (EU) 2017/2269 established the last one for the period of 2018-2022. This Multiannual Framework has become obsolete with the expansion of the Agency’s mandate and has thus been replaced by a single programming document following the 2022 amendments to the FRA Regulation. The single programming document is to be adopted every year in a procedure involving FRA’s Scientific Committee, the Management Board (see section IV) and the European Commission, which contains in particular the annual and multiannual work programme. The single programming document provides a comprehensive framework for planning and programming, connecting the Agency’s long-term strategic priorities and objectives with its annual operational work. This document seeks to ensure coherence between strategic objectives, work areas and outputs necessary to achieve them, offering a structured approach for various stakeholders.

Thematically speaking, FRA has engaged in its work with the following domains (in line with EU competences and relevant Charter rights):

As a result of the 2022 amendments to its founding regulation, the Agency’s expanded areas of activity now explicitly include police cooperation and judicial cooperation in criminal matters (ex-third pillar matters). These are domains where FRA had in the past only timidly acted, exercising self-restraint due to ambiguities concerning the limits of its (originally first pillar-related) mandate post-Lisbon. This “grey zone” situation has thus resulted in FRA carrying out related work only upon the express, targeted request from EU institutions, most commonly from the European Parliament.

As regards the outputs, the Agency has a diverse and colourful publication portfolio. It publishes comparative reports, survey findings, legal opinions (on pending EU legislative proposals), legal position papers (on topical fundamental rights challenges not yet subjected to a legislative proposal by the European Commission) and other materials on the above issue areas. Next to these, FRA also organizes training or other capacity building activities for EU and Member State officials, as well as campaigns and communication activities. Illustrative recent examples are the e-media toolkit on migration; or the “10 keys to effectively communicating human rights”.

In terms of the multiple ways FRA works and the various activities it is tasked to carry out, its mandate is quite broad, empowering the Agency to undertake its own research and data collection; provide methodological advice to EU institutions, agencies and Member States to improve data comparability and quality; formulate opinions (recommendations) on thematic topics on its own initiative or upon request; promote dialogue with civil society; and communicate fundamental rights to the general public and thus raise public awareness.

Another cross-cutting salient feature related to the Agency’s powers is its legal personality and its nature. Situating this phenomenon within the larger body of international law, the creation of so-called “agencies” endowed with legal personality by international organizations is a quite recent phenomenon (Walter, 2008: paras. 13-14). Over the past few decades, the EU has been fairly active in establishing Union agencies by an act of secondary legislation — a phenomenon which is also coined as “agencification” of the EU administrative system.

FRA as an EU agency enjoys legal personality, but its founding regulation only refers expressly to its legal capacity under the domestic legal systems of Member States. This legal capacity is distinct from the EU’s legal personality under Art. 47 TEU, but FRA as an EU body remains within the EU legal and institutional system.

An organization’s international legal personality needs to be separated from the domestic legal personality. The former represents the ability to be a subject of international law, which includes the capacity of possessing rights and duties on an international plane, whereas the latter denotes the capacity to perform legal acts in domestic law, it may even be implied when necessary to allow an international organization to function effectively (Schermers and Blokkers, 2018: paras. 1561, 1591-1598). Yet, the Agency’s international legal personality — and if accepted, its scope — remains unclear and ambiguous (see, e.g., Schusterschitz, 2004; Ott, 2008: 526; Ott et al., 2013: 10, 14). Other commentators deny EU agencies’ legal personality under international law, as they do not see the functional need for such a stand-alone personality (e.g. Orator, 2017); or stress that an explicit decision by the EU itself about the creation of a new international legal person is lacking (Zieliński, 2017: 34, similarly Droesse, 2020: 259-261). This also seems to be the position of the European Commission.

As per state practice concerning the recognition of FRA’s international legal personality, Austria concluded a seat agreement with FRA in 2010, complementing thus with more specific rules the Protocol (No. 7) on Privileges and Immunities of the EU and the country-specific Modalities of Application concluded between Austria and the European Commission (2000). The Agency’s seat (headquarters) agreement resembles to classic headquarters agreements of intergovernmental organizations; and Austria considers it as a “treaty” pursuant to the 1986 Vienna Convention on the Law of the Treaties between States and International Organizations or between International Organizations. However, in FRA’s external relations with international organisations, it was the EU — and not the Agency itself — that concluded an agreement governed by international law, in application of Art. 218 TFEU [ex-Art. 300 TEC], with the CoE establishing a cooperation framework with FRA. This EU-CoE agreement sets up the framework and methods of co-operation between FRA and the CoE entities, with the aim to avoid duplication and ensure complementarity and added value (Di Marco, 2026: 8).

In addition to legally binding international instruments, the Agency may conclude “administrative arrangements” in its own right to cooperate with other international organisations. Such arrangements must comply with EU law and be adopted by the FRA Management Board after consulting the European Commission. So far, only one such working arrangement has been drawn up — with the United Nations (UN) Development Programme (UNDP). Similar non-legally binding working arrangements (e.g. Memoranda of Understanding) have been equally concluded with other EU agencies and bodies, such as the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex), the European Asylum Support Office (EASO — which is now the EU Agency for Asylum [EUAA]), the EU Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol), the EU Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), the EU Agency for Law Enforcement Training (CEPOL), the EU Agency for the Operational Management of Large-Scale IT Systems in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (eu-LISA), the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and the European University Institute. Most recently, FRA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC), to cooperate on European standardisation related to artificialintelligence. Time will tell whether this trend will continue.

In terms of the institutional structure, the FRA Regulation determines the bodies of the Agency (Art. 11): these are the Management Board (Art. 12); the Executive Board (Art. 13); the Scientific Committee (Art. 14); and the Director (Art. 15).

The Rules of Procedure adopted by the Management Board lay down the more detailed modalities concerning the functioning of the Management Board, the Executive Board, and the Scientific Committee; whereas the Director’s decisions (who holds the powers of the “appointing authority” upon the Management Board’s delegation) and other internal documents govern the day-to-day operation of the Agency. When it comes to the institutional design, the Agency differs from many other international institutions and bodies mandated to protect and advance human rights (Morijn and Toggenburg, 2024: 3). The below sub-sections espouse these specificities in more detail.

As regards operational issues, the Agency must fulfil its tasks in complete independence, while ensuring the highest possible level of transparency in its activities. Its governing bodies need to act in the public interest, and FRA’s operations are subject to the review by the European Ombudsman in accordance with Art. 228 TFEU.

The FRA Regulation recalls at the very outset that “developing effective institutions for the protection and promotion of human rights is a common value of the international and European societies” (recital 4). This echoes CoE Recommendation R (97) 14 of the Committee of Ministers on the establishment of independent national institutions for the promotion and protection of human rights.

In Europe, one finds the most sophisticated of all the international human rights legal and institutional frameworks, comprising a rich interplay of EU law with CoE and UN instruments and standards (see generally Wouters and Ovádek, 2021; and European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2012). FRA as a decentralized EU agency in charge of protecting and promoting fundamental rights has been created in a “populated” (European) human rights oversight landscape where not only UN human rights monitoring bodies and CoE mechanisms, but also OSCE structures cover multiple human rights issues (Kjaerum, 2020: 30).

In the quest of grasping how the Agency fits in the above “populated” landscape of human rights bodies and institutional architecture, an illustrative way of capturing FRA’s institutional nature is applying the established typology of “national human rights institutions” (NHRI) pursuant to the 1993 UN Paris Principles — i.e. the advisory committee model, the institute model, the ombudsman model, and the commission model — to the Agency as NHRIs’ “supranational counterpart”. In this analytical frame, it is a mixture of the advisory committee and the institute model (Toggenburg, 2018: 446).

Viewed from another vantage point, FRA is neither a monitoring body (evaluating compliance with international/European standards) like the UN or CoE treaty bodies, nor a dispute settlement body like the European Court of Human Rights, given its lack of power to deal with individual complaints of rights violations (Toggenburg, 2008: 449; Toggenburg: 2014, 1614). It is not a human rights standard-setting body either. In addition, FRA’s mandate excludes, in principle, issuing reports or recommendations targeting specific Member States. Still, “naming and shaming” individual EU countries is not precluded when FRA describes fundamental rights situations or identifies deficiencies or highlights trend in its comparative reports (see also Di Marco, 2026: 9). What is most common is that the Agency rather focuses on information and data collection and analysis, as well as provision of socio-legal expertise and technical advice to EU and national decision-makers and other stakeholders.

As some commentators have noted, FRA can be conceived as a supranational human rights “think-tank” (De Schutter, 2020b: 13, 22) — one that uses “governance language” as a new way of speaking about fundamental rights in the EU (Sokhi-Bulley, 2011: 683). It has also been argued that the Agency’s observation functions imply a sort of a disciplinary power too — as evidenced by the typically critical Fundamental Rights Report, which is an annual flagship publication on the situation of fundamental rights across the EU (Sokhi-Bulley, 2011: 696-700). Critical voices pointed out, however, that owing to the numerous limits circumscribing FRA’s mandate, its institutional setup is “more consistent with the model of an EU technocratic agency than the Paris Principles” (Wouters and Ovádek, 2021: 48).

Be it as it may, FRA — as mandated by its founding regulation — is the EU’s independent expert body providing comparable data and sound socio-legal analysis on fundamental rights issues within the EU to help EU institutions and Member States in designing and implementing fundamental rights compliant laws and policies. This new type of institutional actor in the scene of the regional protection of human rights, due to its particular mandate, has developed over almost 20 years of existence into a “centre of excellence” that complements the institutional human rights landscape in Europe, notably CoE, UN and OSCE/ODIHR structures. Although the Agency was created to primarily provide evidence-based policy and legal advice, it has gradually got more operational. The latter include, for example, consultative tasks in the migration hotspots in Greece and Italy and the EU Task Force Migration Management in Greece, as well as an observer and training role in the Schengen evaluations as per the Schengen Evaluation and Monitoring Mechanism Regulation (EU) 2022/922.

As briefly referred to in section II above, the territorial scope of FRA’s mandate is limited to look into the fundamental rights situation within the territory of EU Member States — which is slightly incoherent with the wider scope of application of the Charter. As a result of this limitation, the Agency’s substantive purview does not, in principle, extend to human rights issues in the EU external relations, excluding thus from its scrutiny activities falling under the former second pillar — common foreign and security policy (CFSP) [Title V TEU]. This has been confirmed by the 2022 amendments to the FRA Regulation, which clearly state that the CFSP area is out of the Agency’s scope of activities. Looking at the external dimension of EU action, issues of human rights performance outside the Union and human rights dialogues conducted with third countries belong to the European Union’s Special Representative for Human Rights, who works closely with the European External Action Service.

Certain factors nuance the above strictly delineated territorial scope though. Such is the stipulation of FRA’s founding regulation on the participation of EU candidate countries and countries which have concluded a Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU as observers in the work of the Agency. Their participation and the modalities are to be determined by a decision of the relevant EU-third country Association Council, taking into account the specific status of each country. This has so far become a reality for Albania, North Macedonia, and Serbia. Their observer status enables FRA to carry out its activities in these “third countries” as well. In addition, even if CFSP activities remain excluded from FRA’s remit of scrutiny, this should be without prejudice to the Agency’s provision of assistance and expertise to EU institutions and entities working in the area of CFSP (e.g. delivering training on fundamental rights for the staff of the European External Action Service).

The Agency’s establishment was a response to the call for the EU to enhance the visibility of fundamental rights in its legal and institutional landscape (De Schutter, 2020b: 14), in a time when the relationship of the EU and the traditional, pan-European human rights actor (the CoE) was not at its peak point, to put it mildly. For instance, the CoE Parliamentary Assembly stressed, back in 2005, that “there is no point in reinventing the wheel by giving the agency a role which is already performed by existing human rights institutions and mechanisms in Europe”. The FRA-CoE relationship, however, nicely evolved over time, ensuring complementarity and a delicate balance in their cooperation. The Agency’s action complements the activities of the CoE, which, for instance, does not have the competence to advise EU institutions (Di Marco, 2026: 9).

Over time, FRA has developed into a trusted partner and a reliable source of information, data and rigorous analysis at the Union level (Morijn and Toggenburg, 2024: 5). The Agency could also act as a multiplier of the work and concerns of NHRIs and similar statutory public human rights bodies at Member State level, transforming such input into a new quality of evidence. As explained above, it is currently mandated to look into the fundamental rights performance of 30 European States, including three (candidate) countries of the Western Balkans next to all EU Member States. This territorial reach can further grow in future with other third countries aspiring EU membership — and more observers are already likely to join in the near future.

Despite limitations in its mandate, FRA was flexible enough to adapt its activities to changing realities and new challenges in the Union. Occasionally, it has been closely involved in the EU legislative process in case of proposals upon which the Agency was requested, by an EU institution, to provide a (legal) opinion from the perspective of such proposals’ compatibility with fundamental rights. That was the case on a number of migration and asylum files (notably between 2015 and 2019); on the implementation of the Charter; or more recently on the proposed simplified European Sustainability Reporting Standards. Still, FRA’s participation in the EU legislative process remains dependent on the requests by EU institutions even after the 2022 amendments to its founding regulation [Art. 4(2)].

In addition to this “downstream” involvement in the EU law-making process triggered by a request from EU institutions, FRA has lately started exploring other, own initiative “upstream” avenues to provide legal input on topical, emerging issues carrying considerable fundamental rights implications and risks. This new “product” is called “legal position paper”, touching upon hotly debated (planned) legal and policy measures on which the European Commission has not yet tabled a legislative proposal under Arts. 289 or 294 TFEU. Thus far, FRA produced two such legal position papers: one on the planned “return hubs” in third countries; and another one on how to counter the instrumentalisation of migrants and refugees while respecting fundamental rights.

At the same time, the Agency’s field presence in the migration “hotspots” on the Greek islands in the Aegean (between 2016 and 2025), and its other on-site activities such as Schengen evaluation country missions and regular field visits to those Member States where serious and persistent rights violations have been reported (e.g. at the UE external borders; migration/asylum-related reception/detention facilities), putting thus its boots in the mud, contributed to its more operational engagement at the national level. Simply put, FRA’s “advisory monitoring” role has been, in practice, coupled with “normative monitoring” on an ad-hoc basis (De Schutter, 2020b: 21) — which consists of an evaluation of compliance on the basis of a “pre-existing normative grid” (Di Marco, 2026: 9). When the Agency critiques individual Member States in its annual and comparative reports by describing fundamental rights situations, identifying deficiencies or highlighting trends, this “indirect evaluation effectively blends advisory and normative dimensions”, challenging thus the feasibility of their separation (Di Marco, 2026: 9).

Overall, the innovative nature of FRA’s work can be captured in the novelty of bringing in the sociological-statistical method when assessing the situation of fundamental rights across the Union, and not exclusively pursuing the — traditionally predominant — legalistic approach, mainly based on desk research. Illustrative examples of this blended socio-legal approach are the EU-wide survey on violence against women; the Fundamental Rights Survey focusing on the experience of the general population in the EU; and the report on bias in algorithms and the risk of discrimination in AI-driven systems.

Put differently, FRA’s work “fuses legal and social science methods,” reflecting thus a shift from the primarily legal analysis-driven human rights protection landscape (Byrne and Entzinger, 2020: 1). As an indicator of its success and the added value of its work, FRA continues to be the EU agency with the most orders from the Publications Office of the EU — and some of its online publications were downloaded over 10 000 times.

Still, FRA’s mandate limits its activities in certain areas. Notable examples are the lack of own initiative intervention in the EU legislative process and the incomplete mimicry of the NHRI model. Commentators have also observed that the Agency is not alone in upholding fundamental rights in the EU context: it “does not for the most part possess the type of exclusive expertise gained by other EU agencies in more narrow and technical fields” (Wouters and Ovádek, 2020: 101).

Another source of constraint on its work is that FRA functions with limited resources, counting on some 110 staff (cohort of trainees excluded — 20-25 young professionals per year) and an annual budget of roughly 26.6 million for the 2025 financial year, which has only very moderately increased — if at all — over time. Compared to other EU agencies and bodies in the “area of freedom, security and justice” (AFSJ) (see e.g. Frontex, the EU Asylum Agency, and Europol), FRA belongs to the less-resourced justice and home affairs agencies in terms of budget and staff, although fundamental rights implications of the ever-expanding EU policies in the AFSJ (Title V TFEU) are significant (see also Wouters and Ovádek, 2020: 94). As leading commentators aptly phrased, “[k]eeping the Agency’s budget out of sync with the growth of its tasks is not only in contradiction with relevant international standards but also a risk to the FRA’s appropriate delivery on core commitments” (Morijn and Toggenburg, 2024:7). Such limited resources raise a question about the priorities of the EU — and its Member States — when it comes to the institutionalised monitoring and promotion of fundamental rights at the Union level. FRA’s financial resources do not seem to significantly grow under the next Multiannual Financial Framework(2028-2034) either.

Measuring its impact intra-EU, as a new phenomenon, references to the Agency have been included in multiple pieces of secondary EU legislation relating to justice and home affairs and large-scale EU information systems. Some entrust it with new tasks, such as membership in the Fundamental Rights Guidance Board of the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) and that of the revamped Visa Information System (VIS) respectively. Likewise, FRA is tasked by EU law to be a member of the Consultative Forum on Fundamental Rights of Frontex and that of the EU Asylum Agency. Various instruments adopted under the EU Pact on Migration and Asylum likewise mandated the Agency with new tasks, such as producing general guidance on how to set up independent national monitoring mechanisms during screening of new arrivals and under the asylum border procedure and to support Member States, for example, with methodological guidance and training, if requested. As another example, the Europol Regulation stipulates that training for Europol officers is to be developed in cooperation with FRA.

Externally, over the years, FRA — which takes active part in the EU Agencies Network and is a member of the nine EU agencies forming part of the Justice and Home Affairs Agencies Network — has concluded cooperation arrangements with a number of justice and home affairs agencies. These include, as presented above, Frontex, EUAA, CEPOL, Eurojust, Europol, and eu-LISA. Added to this, FRA has entered into bilateral co-operation schemes with other stakeholders such as the EDPS, the European University Institute, the Greek Ministry of the Interior, and most recently the CEN-CENELEC.

The latest external evaluation of the Agency, conducted in 2017 under Art. 30 of its founding regulation, found that its original mandate was relevant and corresponded to stakeholders’ needs, which overall acclaimed FRA’s added value as well as its visible effectiveness and impact at EU level. Nonetheless, some shortcomings have also been identified, calling for improving clarity of the scope of activities and enhancing the governance of the Agency’s operation (Optimity, 2017: 141-146). Most of the necessary changes have been brought about by the amending Regulation (EU) 2022/555 as of April 2022 (for more, see in section II and Gamarra, 2022).

VII. CONCLUSIONS

EU law and policy in the field of fundamental rights protection have tremendously developed over the past 25 years (Morijn and Toggenburg, 2024: 2). The establishment of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights in 2007 was an institutional manifestation of this trend, equally demonstrating that the Union has evolved into a community of values, continually striving to strengthen its human rights profile (Steiner, 2006: 140).

As the foregoing demonstrated, the framework set out by its founding regulation enabled FRA to develop an original role in the European institutional landscape on protecting human rights, while securing a mutually reinforcing and not competing or duplicating work with other actors, especially the Council of Europe. In recent years, FRA has also increased its profile by becoming more policy relevant, aligning its activities closer to the political priorities of EU institutions (see also Saastamoinen, 2020: 65). This is now also echoed in FRA’s 2026 Annual Work Programme: the Agency “will prioritise activities most directly relevant to the implementation of EU law [and] will emphasise […] timeliness and policy impact”.

Substance-wise, the Agency’s empirical surveys and comparative reports have improved the availability of EU-wide cross-national data on discrimination, gender-based violence, migration, children’s rights, access to justice, and so on — thereby usefully informing debates within the EU. Likewise, FRA achieved enhanced visibility via public hearings of the European Parliament, participating in Justice and Home Affairs Council meetings and various preparatory bodies of the Council of the EU, and the Director’s visits to Member States (see also Wouters and Ovádek, 2021: 44). Despite these achievements, FRA’s institutional impact remains constrained. It lacks enforcement powers and the impact of its work also depends on the willingness of political actors to translate its findings into concrete policy and legal change. Some critics also note that its rather advisory mandate can lead to technocratic framing of fundamental rights issues, potentially depoliticizing structural conflicts over fundamental rights (e.g. De Schutter, 2020a).

Looking inside out, coupled with its potential impact on shaping other (regional) international organisations operating on other continents, the picture seems to be more straightforward. As a former FRA Director framed it, the EU, “in establishing the Fundamental Rights Agency, […] delivered a good practice of global significance” (O’Flaherty, 2020: xi). The Agency thus embodies a model of a human rights structure to be possibly replicated in other regional intergovernmental organizations such as the Organization of American States, the African Union, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Turning to the possible avenues for FRA’s future evolution, Morijn and Toggenburg (2024: 7-10) map three roadmap-style scenarios: 1) “status quo plus” (with sharper prioritisation and proper funding within the current mandate), 2) “FRA plus” (with a bolder mandate, including own-initiative legal opinions on draft EU legislation, a role in Art. 7 TEU proceedings, and wider geographic reach), and a 3) its transformation into an “EU Fundamental Rights Authority” (a full-fledged, independent, ideally entrenched by changes to the founding EU Treaties). Under the most ambitious last option, the Agency would gain powers to bring Charter-based actions under Art. 263 TFEU, to handle complaints, and to be consulted on rights-relevant legislative proposals, making the EU the first international organisation with its own NHRI-style body. For sure, no one holds the crystal ball to look into which one of the three options will prevail. Yet, FRA’s upcoming evaluation in 2027 presents a welcome occasion to revisit the above-outlined scenarios. Its mission remains unchanged: make fundamental rights a reality to all in the EU, by doing its share — mobilising its diverse toolbox — in bringing such rights to life.