The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights was launched in Vienna on 1 March 2007. It is the successor to the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC). The agency is an independent centre of expertise on fundamental rights and its main tasks are information gathering and analysis, provision of advice and awareness raising. Among other themes, it has the mandate to work on age discrimination.
The agency carries out its tasks independently. It has the right to formulate opinions to the EU institutions and to Member States when implementing Community law, either on its own initiative or at the request of the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union or the European Commission. It does not have the mandate to examine individual complaints nor does it have regulatory decision-making powers.
The agency has also established the Fundamental Rights Platform as a structured forum with civil society and human rights organisations in which AGE is a member.
AGE is continuously lobbying to ensure that the priorities of the Fundamental Rights Agency include the fight against age discrimination and the interlinking of age with other grounds of discrimination. AGE wants to see a particular emphasis placed on the gender discrimination faced by older women as well as a specific focus placed on social rights, poverty reduction and social inclusion which should include the protection of older employees and consumers.
