Stand Up for FRA!

emmamuller12
22 dec 2025
3 minuten om te lezen

We - Anja Mutsaers and I, just ended a two-day meeting of the Management Board of the EU Fundamental Rights Agency in Vienna - the first physical meeting after our appointment in July. We will leave what’s in the board in the board, but share some impressions – which are purely our own and which cannot be attributed in any way to FRA and its work.

Urgency

More than anything: a sense of urgency, acuteness. As we were talking about the FRA strategy and planning, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte popped up on our phones, addressing the Berlin Security Conference, where he warned:

“We must all accept that we must act to defend our way of life, now.”
“NATO’s own defences can hold for now but with its economy dedicated to war, Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years.”
“We need to be ready because at the end of this first quarter of the 21st century, conflicts are no longer fought at arms-length. Conflict is at our door. Russia has brought war back to Europe, and we must be prepared for the scale of war our grandparents or great-grandparents endured.”

Many of us know: two weeks ago, the new US National Security Strategy (https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf) was presented. In it, the US Administration warns of the “stark prospect of civilizational erasure” in Europe, claims that European Union is violating human rights like political liberty and free speech, pushed for a peace in Ukraine without much of a role for human rights and states it will be ‘cultivating resistance’ to Europe’s “current trajectory”. That is the background against which FRA must do its work. Clearly: security features prominently. Also, as the countries of the European Union are digitising fast. Other elements of that background: democracy and rule of law under pressure, limits on budgets, increasing inequalities and discrimination, shifting migration patterns, economic and social changes, and climate change. Respect for fundamental rights is critical in each of these areas.

Agility

Secondly, and in light of this, the urgent question: what can FRA best do? The Agency is constantly reaching out to others – within the EU, Council of Europe Agencies, national human rights bodies, and many others, to ensure duplication is minimised and impact is maximised. It is also working to constantly balance agility and consistency. Not easy. These challenging times ask a lot of the organisation and its staff.

Storytelling

Thirdly, the importance of telling the story. Why are human rights important for everyone? What is the impact of not respecting them on people’s lives, on society, on wellbeing, on the economy? Data and research is important. But the story also needs to be told. Why are fundamental rights so important for our societies?

Standup for FRA!

Needless to say: the FRA is more important than ever. EU citizens can be very proud of the EU, which has set up this watch dog that helps protect us all against infringements of our basic rights and freedoms in a Europe that is under threat, that faces a lot of political volatility, that is undergoing rapid economic adaptation, and that is being transformed by AI. Rights and freedoms that are a foundation for safety, stabling, and wellbeing in Europe. We both slept a lot better after re-reading FRA’s mandate.

We end by thanking Sirpa Rautio and the whole FRA team for their tremendous work and dedication and Jim Clarken for steering and coordinating our management board meeting. Finally, we share two recent excellent reports on AI and fundamental rights: