A delegation from the Social Platform has met with the Commission’s DG JLS on 1^st August to discuss recent developments linked to the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) and Fundamental Rights related issues in the EU. Please find enclosed a short summary of the main points raised during this meeting:

Participants:

Social Platform: Pascale Charhon (ENAR), Christine Loudes (ILGA-Europe), Richard Polacek (Secretariat)

European Commission, DG JLS: Emmanuel Crabit (Head of Section JLS.C.3.; acting Head of Unit - Citizenship and fundamental rights); Policy officers: José Alegre Seoane, Sala Saastamoinen, Emine Kaya.

1. The Fundamental Rights Agency

• Multi-Annual framework (MAF):

- According to DG JLS, the MAF needs to be sufficiently flexible and sufficiently clear; The key step is the adoption of the MAF (in the form of a ‘decision’) by the Council hopefully at the end of this year (probably JHA Council in December?);
- DG JLS in general has taken the approach to be careful as regards on the ‘MAF decision’ in order to avoid that the ‘MAF decision’ is used as a pretext by some Council members to re-open discussions on the FRA Regulation and the remit of the FRA;
- Therefore DG JLS will not propose a very ‘detailed’ MAF; however there will be possibly a longer memorandum of understanding (MoU);
- According to DG JLS, the MAF shall not be a choice between several FR and it shall not review the FRA Regulation; issues like the EU FR Charter or the reference to the ECHR should therefore not explicitly figure in the MAF, as it is mentioned in the that the Charter shall guide the FRA’s work; this is already mentioned in the FRA regulation;
- DG JLS is still assessing the situation as regards social rights and social inclusion; it is not likely that they will figure as separate issues on the MAF, but they might be included in the MoU. DG JLS understands that issues like ‘immigration’, ‘children’s rights’ and ‘discrimination’ have all a social inclusion dimension, which the FRA needs to take into account when dealing with these issues;

- According to DG JLS, the main task of the FRA is to close the gap as regards lacking analysis and expertise work on FR; the quality of the FRA’s work will be the biggest challenge, even if MAF is not too ambitious; another challenge will be to ensure that the Commission is able to ensure the legal and political follow-up of the work done by the FRA; the fact that the FR unit in DG JLS is under-staffed might be a serious obstacle to this.

Next steps in the procedure for adopting the ‘MAF decision’:

o Commission received in July some comments on the MAF from the Management Board of the FRA (MAB);
o Commission adopts draft ‘MAF decision’ at the end of August/beginning of September;
o Draft ‘MAF decision’ is to be sent for opinion to the EP (probably in the course of mid-September 2007);
o The EP (LIBE committee) will examine the draft decision and the EP plenary will adopt a resolution; no precise dates are known yet as all depends on the LIBE committee and the possibility to vote on this issue in the EP’s plenary;
o The Commission hopes that the Council will be able to adopt the ‘MAF decision’ by the end of this year.

• Director of the FRA:

- The Commission has received more than 100 applications;
- Interviews with a pre-selected number of applicants took place in mid-July;
- Another short-list has been established after these interviews;
- Currently applicants go through tests related to management;
- The final short-listing will be ready in October after selection by Commissioners Frattini and Kallas;
- Hearings will be organized from October on with the EP and the Council; they will try to set up a common list as regards the degree of priority between candidates;
- The final choice of the director will be made by the FRA Management Board (vote 2/3 majority).

• FRA’s Annual Workprogramme (AWP)

- DG JLS said that it has no influence on the AWP. It’s decided entirely by the FRA’s MAB.

2. The Intergovernmental Conference

- The UK opt-out of the EU FR Charter (as fixed in protocol n° 7 of the Draft Reform Treaty) is the crucial issue and needs to be well analysed in particular as regards the wish/possibility of other EU member states to join the UK in protocol;
- DG JLS is interested to share information with civil society on this issue;
- It might be necessary to be cautious in the lobbying for the FR Charter in order not to raise too much awareness and to avoid that other EU member states will wish to join the UK in protocol n° 7.

3. Impact assessment (IA) on FR

- The 2005 communication (COM (2005) 172 final) is still the key tool for the Commission;
- The key challenge is now to ensure that the IA is less static and done also at the level of other EU institutions, notably the EP and the Council;
- The lack of human resources inside DG JLS is a crucial issue in this respect.

4. Fundamental Rights Programme

The Commission has adopted in April 2007 a funding programme on FR and citizenship. This programme will support the following types of actions:
· specific actions taken by the Commission;
· specific trans-national projects of Community interest presented by an authority or any other body of a Member State, an international or non-governmental organisation;
· support to the activities of non-governmental organisations or other entities pursuing an aim of general European interest.

- The Programme covers the period 2007-2013 and makes available an amount of 10.6 million euros for 2007;
- The Committee in charge of this programme will adopt the annual work programme for 2007 in September/October 2007. Grants will be operating from 2008 on. The 2008 annual work programme will be adopted hopefully before the end of this year;
- Civil society will be invited to submit applications for the financing of projects as defined in the annual work programmes. The application should cover projects of min. 75.000-100.000 euros and the Community funding will cover up to 70% of total costs; any project funded should imply at least 2 different EU member states (candidate countries are included);
- More detailed information will be available on DG JLS website in September.