Fundamental Rights Agency opened amid criticism 

The FRA will replace and build on the work of the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). According to the Commission, the agency has three key functions:

• To collect information and data;
• provide advice to the European Union and its member states, and;
• promote dialogue with civil society to raise public awareness of fundamental rights.

Commission Vice-President Frattini said: "We must promote fundamental rights if we are to achieve a Europe of which we can all be proud. A Europe which is richly diverse, where people are integrated and live side by side and gender, racial and other inequalities are overcome."

However, Amnesty International says that racism and discrimination are the only areas that the agency will be able to effectively address. It described the agency as a "missed opportunity" and regretted that the FRA will be cut off from all other major European human-rights issues such as counter-terrorism, police abuse, asylum and immigration, fair trial, violence against women and trafficking in human beings.

Amnesy International's  EU  Office  Director, Dick Oosting said: "Such was the desire not to offend anyone that at times it felt as if the agency was being created to protect member states instead of holding them to account."

The agency has also faced criticism on the grounds that Europe already has human- rights agencies such as the Council of Europe and the European Court of Human Rights.

British MEP Syed Kamall told the BBC: "The Fundamental Rights Agency will take £20 million (€30m) of taxpayers' money and use it to advance a partisan agenda with little accountability to anyone...Frankly, we can all think of better things to spend taxpayers' money on. While we do want to see greater equality, another expensive agency is not the answer."

The agency is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2007.