The European Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) published a report which examines how rules and standards can be upheld to ensure that EU funds are spent in ways that do not violate people’s fundamental rights in the EU in practice.
The report discusses the potential roles of national human rights institutions, ombudsperson institutions and equality bodies. The report concludes among others that independent fundamental rights bodies and civil society organisations specialising in fundamental rights need to be included more in the initial stages of the funding cycle. Secondly, this involvement in the funding cycles needs extra human, financial and technical resources which should be provided. Lastly, lessons need to be learned from evaluations and complaints procedures. EU Member States also need to ensure that their complaints procedures are sufficiently effective to identify any violations that occur and deal with them effectively.