FRA Report: stronger human rights safeguards in European lawmaking are needed

The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) issued the 2025 Better legislation - Human rights impact assessments in lawmaking report, examining how human rights impact assessments (HRIAs) are built into lawmaking across the EU and its Member States. It highlights that, although progress has been made, much work remains. Indeed, the use of HRIAs remains uneven, often superficial and rarely addresses the full spectrum of human rights. In many EU countries, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is frequently overlooked. The report identifies insufficient consultation with external experts, limited stakeholder participation and a lack of evaluation once laws are in force. To address these gaps, the report offers practical recommendations for more systematic, inclusive and evidence-based HRIAs that strengthen human rights protection and ensure better, more accountable legislation throughout the EU.

Specifically, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights calls on the EU to ensure systematic and thorough application of fundamental rights impact assessments; increase the accessibility and inclusiveness of public consultations; consider independent external human rights expertise and support peer-learning between Member States to further improve their human rights impact assessment systems.

Furthermore, FRA calls on the EU Member States to develop coherent and comprehensive guidelines that explicitly use the Charter when legislating within the scope of EU law; use the EU-level human rights impact assessment as a starting point and complement it with a national impact assessment to address the national context; ensure high quality assessments through appropriate coordination, consultation and capacity building and ensure that ex-post evaluations become the rule and systematically consider human rights impacts.