01 May 2016
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The EU's Fundamental Rights Agency and the European Ombudsman have both recently released annual reports detailing their work and areas of interest in the course of 2015.
Fundamental Rights Agency
The FRA's report deals with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and its use by Member States; equality and non-discrimination; racism, xenophobia and related intolerance; Roma integration; information society, privacy and data protection; rights of the child; access to justice, including the rights of crime victims; developments in the implementation of the convention of the rights of persons with disabilities.
The report also includes a section focusing specifically on the situation for migrants and refugees in Europe:
"Over a million people sought refuge in EU Member States in 2015, confronting the EU with an unprecedented challenge. Although this represents only about 0.2 % of the overall population, the number was far larger than in previous years. Moreover, with about 60 million people in the world forcibly displaced as a result of persecution, conflict, generalised violence or human rights violations, the scale of these movements is likely to continue for some time. FRA looks at the effectiveness of measures taken or proposed by the EU and its Member States to manage this situation, with particular reference to their fundamental rights compliance."
The section on asylum and migration provides a useful oversight of developments across Europe in 2015, including the immediate responses to the arrival of large numbers of refugees and migrants; the construction of fences and introduction of border controls in the various countries; and legal and policy changes introduced by the EU and its Member States and their implications for migrants and refugees.
See:
European Ombudsman
Key topics covered in the European Ombudsman's report are transparency; transparency in EU decision-making; lobbying transparency; ethical issues; fundamental rights; EU competition policy; public participation in EU decision-making; and EU agencies. It also provides statistics on the types of complaints received by the Ombudsman and their resolution.
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