The European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties (LIBE) nominated, on Thursday 26 October, Jonas Grimheden (Swedish) as its favourite candidate for the post of Director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), with 31 votes in favour, 15 against and 5 abstentions.
At his hearing in front of the MEPs, the Swedish candidate set out his four priorities. On the one hand, he would like to complement the FRA’s benchmarking work with “sharper products”, i.e. faster and based on needs. For example, he said, the Agency should take a more rapid stance on topical issues, enabling it to increase its political influence.
Mr Grimheden also wants to introduce “modern and lean management”. As well as ensuring the diversity of human resources, this would involve “making more use of the staff, less personal assistants, more pooling of resources and spending much more time on research than spending time on the road speaking at conferences”.
The candidate also wants to place the Agency in “a safe pair of EU hands”. Prior to his current position as Head of Fundamental Rights at Frontex, he worked for the FRA for 15 years.
His fourth priority, he concluded, is “delivering on the enhanced mandate” given to the FRA in 2022, in particular by working on judicial and police cooperation and assisting EU candidate countries with fundamental rights issues.
Finally, when asked about the EU’s three main challenges in the area of fundamental rights, Mr Grimheden said that they were respect for the Rule of law, migration issues and inequality.
The European Parliament’s Conference of Presidents will now have to confirm the choice of candidate, and the EU Council will in turn have to make a recommendation. It will be up to the FRA Management Board to make the final choice. The other candidates in the running are Nils Muižnieks, Sirpa Rautio and Jim Clarken. (Original version in French by Hélène Seynaeve)