European Committee of the Regions

FRA’s cooperation with the European Committee of the Regions serves to raise awareness of fundamental rights issues among local and regional authorities and helps them protect and promote fundamental rights.

The European Committee of the Regions and FRA have set up an Annual Dialogue to discuss fundamental rights themes of relevance at the regional and local level, and to share knowledge of existing fundamental rights good practices.

Each year, FRA jointly organises the Annual Dialogue with the Commission for Citizenship, Governance, Institutional and External Affairs (CIVEX). It is an opportunity to discuss policy actions at the European and Member State level, as well as to explore ways of developing cross-sectoral and multi-level coordination.

FRA also cooperates with the Committee through:

  • Thematic presentations, such as presenting FRA’s work to the Commission for Social Policy, Education, Employment, Research and Culture (SEDEC) or during Committee of the Regions conferences;
  • Input to rapporteurs for their draft Opinions;
  • Contribution of FRA Director to panel discussions in plenary of the Committee of the Regions.

It has also co-produced with the Committee the booklet “Making rights real: A guide for local and regional authorities”. The FRA and the CIVEX Commission co-organised in 2022 a online training course for the staff of the Committee of the Regions on "the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and its relevance for EU, national and local governance".

The Committee was also part of the advisory group on the FRA joined-up governance project between 2012 and 2014. It contributed methods to enhance fundamental rights implementation across various government levels. The findings can be found in the FRA toolkit “Joining up fundamental rights”.

FRA-Committee of the Regions Annual Dialogue events: