ECNL participated and hosted a session at the Fundamental Rights Forum, organized by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA). It was an opportunity to raise awareness and share stories, discuss new perspectives on pressing fundamental rights issues within and outside of the European Union, and suggest strategies to deal with them in a broad forum of EU and national government representatives, international and regional institutions, civil society and academics.
On September 26 ECNL hosted a session on relatively untapped potential of the EU legislation to protect civic freedoms (of association, assembly, expression and participation) and to push back legal restrictions on civil society. We aimed to identify how the current EU law can be used to strengthen and protect civic freedoms and highlight existing examples and lessons learned (with focus on Hungary and Romania). Our goal was to influence the hearts and minds of policymakers and the participants regarding existing or new constructive ways to protect and advance these civic freedoms, feeding directly into initiatives, laws and policies at the European and national level.
See what FRA says on this topic in its opinions on challenges facing civil society organisations working on human rights in the EU and more specifically on collective redress mechanisms to enable collective action and access to justice.