ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the relationship between the Council of Europe and FRA seen from the former’s perspective. It tells how the original mistrust that stemmed from fear of duplication became a solid relationship, in which the Council and the Agency build on each other’s mandates and working methods to achieve a better human rights protection in Europe. The chapter explains the complementarity of both of them, as well as how FRA actually filled a gap by providing advice to EU institutions and Member States to ensure that EU law and its implementation are human-rights compliant. It also provides an overview of the institutional cooperation between the two, as well as selected examples of cooperation in areas such as children rights, anti-discrimination and surveillance. It concludes by suggesting that maintaining the continued complementarity of the Council of Europe and FRA will be essential to maintaining their high impact in these challenging times for human rights.
