The CoE-FRA-ENNHRI-EQUINET Collaborative Platform on social and economic rights was launched in October 2015 by the participating organisations: the Council of Europe (CoE), the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA), the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions (ENNHRI) and the European Network of Equality Bodies (EQUINET).

The main objective of the Platform on social and economic rights is to help reinforce the effectiveness of the standards for national bodies and contribute to finding responses to fundamental rights challenges in Europe, including coordinated action on regional policies.

The Platform on social and economic rights provides an opportunity to discuss ways to ensure that the European Social Charter (ESC) and other international human rights standards relating to economic and social rights are taken into account in the design and implementation of national legislation and practice. It will bring out the important role of national and international human rights organisations in monitoring the respect of states’ human rights commitments.

The Platform will mainly focus on how to ensure greater use of the relevant human rights norms, in particular the European Social Charter, how to promote wider acceptance and use of the collective complaints procedure, and how to further the adoption of the revised Social Charter by states still bound by the 1961 Charter.

The Platform should also help defining the role of the National Human Rights Structures in achieving the objectives of the "Turin Process" for the European Social Charter, launched by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe in October 2014 in Turin.