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Exchange of views with the Director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

 Exchange of views with M.Kjaerum, Director of FRA, 26 June 2012[27/06/2012]  The European Committee of Social Rights held an exchange of views with Mr Morten Kjaerum, Director of the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights


The meeting with Mr Kjaerum allowed the Committee to have detailed information on the activities and working methods of the Agency for Fundamental Rights of the European Union and in particular the Agency’s draft activity programme covering the next five years which includes a number of activities relevant to the field of social and economic rights.

It was also an opportunity to explore possibilities of intensified practical cooperation between the Committee and the Agency. Mr Kjaerum’s proposal to strengthen cooperation between the Agency for Fundamental Rights and the Committee was welcomed. In future, this cooperation would consist inter alia of a more systematic exchange of social rights-related information and where possible the elaboration of indicators concerning the rights guaranteed by the European Social Charter.

The Council of Europe has a close working relationship with the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA); a relationship that is formalised in an ‘Agreement between the European Community and the CoE on cooperation between the FRA and the CoE’. This agreement established a general cooperation framework with the aim to avoid duplication, ensure complementarity and bring added value to the work carried out by the Agency together with the Council of Europe.

In this framework, the Department of the European Social Charter has had numerous contacts with FRA and the invitation to Mr Kjaerum for the exchange of views is the direct outcome of a FRA-organised meeting on access to healthcare and irregular migrants which took place in Vienna in February 2012.
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