On Wednesday (24 June), Sirpa Rautio, director of the European Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) was in Brussels. She came in from Vienna to present in the European Parliament this year’s (2025) Fundamental Rights Report.
Before the presentation in front of the parliamentary committee on civil liberties, justice and home affairs (LIBE), she answered questions for EUobserver.
It has been 25 years since the proclamation of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Is the problem still the content of the charter, or rather its uneven implementation across member states?
The content of the charter is good. It gathers all human rights that had been in existence at the time of the proclamation. So it has very few new elements. It is a good instrument which binds the EU itself and member states within the scope. The content is not a problem in my view. As always with human rights, the implementation is the problem. The implementation is uneven, but also lawmaking can be a problem itself.
It is something we need to be very vigilant about. Implementation to me means that you already have a directive which has been transposed, or you have national law, and then you are implementing it. But the actual lawmaking, whether it is at the EU level or the national level, can also be problematic if there are not enough fundamental rights, assessment or safeguards.
What lessons can be drawn from the EU Commission’s efforts to strengthen the application of the charter? What mechanisms are needed to ensure that all European institutions and member states fully comply with charter obligations when implementing EU law?
A lot has been done. We [the Fundamental Rights Agency] work a lot with the commission in parallel with them. So we have a major role in being kind of a knowledge hub for the Charter. There has been a lot of increase in the recognition of the Charter.
At the EU level, it is well known because it binds directly. At the member state’s level, it is more complicated because of the understanding of the scope of the EU law. Not only because 70 percent of laws have an EU dimension, but also because it is important to understand that they fall within the scope of EU law and competencies.
What has been helping over years is that the Luxembourg Court has been having increasingly more important judgements about the interpretation of the charter. And the more the cases, the more it [the charter] gets recognised and gets traction at the national level, and especially by the courts and by the lawmaking, I mean the parliaments.
The charter has been going up [in significance]. I have to admit, in my past, maybe 10 years ago, I would have been quite sceptical whether it has a lot of importance at the national level. But with the awareness raising and especially with the Luxembourg Court case law, it has become more and more relevant. In some areas, it goes further than Strasbourg’s Court.
In which cases for instance?
I know one case well because Finland used it. This was a few years ago when we were changing our law on internal security and surveillance. It was very clear that Luxembourg Court had more specific judgement on how to do surveillance while respecting the right to privacy and fundamental rights. In that case, the lawmaker, the Constitutional Committee, actually used almost exclusively the Luxembourg Court and the charter.
To what extent have debates on gender equality, anti-discrimination, LGBTQI+ rights, and civil society become fault lines in discussions on fundamental rights?
Let us look at different phases. We had sort of a happy marriage in the 1990s and early 2000s. Then we had 9/11. But I think the first challenges really emerged maybe ten years ago. We started to have an erosion of the rule of law in EU member states. Then there were some major challenges. During Covid, we started to see more and more of underlying issues as strange alliances sowing seeds of conspiracy.
A few years back, it was often clear that attacks started from the same corners – attacks on gender equality and overall equality. The Istanbul Convention was under attack in a number of Council of Europe member states, but also in Turkey and that still continues.
I think this sort of inequality and especially the more contested grounds are at the moment under attack. Then civil society in general has suffered a lot of funding cuts, but also legal challenges.
Data from March from the Civic Space Update shows 67 percent of organisations that responded (which was more than ever), report online attacks or threats; 60 percent report negative media coverage or smear campaigns; 39 percent, politically motivated funding cuts; 36 percent, excessive administrative controls or audits, SLAPP [Strategic Lawsuit against Public Participation], for example. And this has been growing, and this is not limited any more to the most difficult issues. It started with LGBTI+ rights, and those who defend migrant rights rescues, but now it is broader and broader.
So the rights are under risk…
General questioning of the right of civil society to engage in advocacy, I think, is under risk – governments are like service providers. As long as you take all the people for walks, you are fine, but if you advocate for change of foreign policy in certain regions you are targeted. So here we have very clear trends and tendencies.
What are the main reasons for the attacks and the threats?
I think governments don’t want to be scrutinised. There are many places where civil society is still engaging and participating. And this is general, but there is an aversion to being challenged, held accountable. Also there are, and I can now speak from my direct experience, more and more questioning the rights of anyone else except the ruling majority to set the agenda. If you are from the opposition or from the civil society and you are challenging the agenda that the government has they are unhappy with that. It is not limited to human rights organisations – social organisations, even trade unions can be challenged in different ways.
In early June the FRA published its annual report. Systemic risks can be seen on many fronts either internally or externally : rise in hate, racism and discrimination; dealing with migrant arrivals; increase in gender-based violence; institutional-response gap; digitalisation and AI challenges; pressure on civil society; and more. How does one not get pessimistic after reading all this?
You have to be optimistic by nature. Age helps when you have seen all the ups and downs, but that is not something very serious. Experience shows human rights have always been a battle.
I was last week in the Netherlands, at a conference on racism. There was an old lady, she really must be a legend, Kilamona. She is someone who has been fighting, a bit like the early US campaign for racial equality. She must have been, 85 or 90 maybe. Very fragile already. Despite everything she has experienced since the 1960s and 1970s — she was still optimistic. Precisely because of her long experience, which was far longer than mine, she had really interesting explanations.
But more seriously, I am a lawyer and law matters. We have strong treaties: the Treaty of the European Union – Article 2, the charter, we have independent courts, not only Luxembourg but Strasbourg. And we see pushback. And then finally, it is the people itself. Look at Hungary. You could see how well organised people were and how they were resisting. The NGOs that have been there working for years, if not tens of years, organised extremely impressive panels before the Pride to explain what they were doing. But then you also need the politicians who can go and talk to people. Mobilising young people, women, mobilising normal people is needed.
Should there be any strengthening of the legal part of the charter by 2050?
