1. The expression “Human Rights Agency” instead of “Fundamental Rights Agency” has also been used. The European Council has referred twice to the “Human Rights Agency”, once in conclusions from the Brussels European Council of 13 December 2003, and in the Hague Programme on the strengthening of Freedom, Security and Justice in the Union annexed to the conclusions of the European Council of 4–5 November 2004.
2. COM(2004) 693 final; A proposal for the establishment of amonitoring centre for human rights within the European Union, which could serve to improve the coordination of the fundamental rights policies pursued by the Member States, had already been made earlier, in particular, in a report prepared for the Comité des Sages responsible for draftingLeading by Example: A Human Rights Agenda for the European Union for the Year 2000: see P. Alston and J.H.H. Weiler, “An ‘Ever Closer Union’ in Need of a Human Rights Policy: The European Union and Human Rights”, in P. Alston, with M. Bustelo and J. Heenan (eds.), The European Union and Human Rights, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 3.
3. All the contributions to this consultation are available on the following website: http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/news/consulting_public/fundamental_rights_agency/news_contribution_fund_right_agency_en.htm Most of the contributions addressed the issues of the independency of the future Agency, its geographical scope, the quality of its expertise, its role under Article 7 EU and its complementarity with the already existing monitoring mechanisms in these fields, in particular with the Council of Europe and with the national human rights institutions. In additiona, acting upon the request of the European Commission, the European Policy Evaluation Consortium (EPEC) prepared two reports analysing the various responses to the public consultation and presenting the results of the discussions that took place during the public hearing: EPEC,Preparatory Study for Impact Assessment and Ex-Ante Evaluation of Fundamental Rights Agency Analysis of Responses to Public Consultation, 19 J anuary 2005 and EPEC,Preparatory Study for Impact Assessment and Ex-ante Evaluation of Fundamental Rights Agency -Public Hearing Report, February 2005. These reports are available on the following websites: http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/news/consulting_public/ fundamental_rights_agency/analysis_written_contributions_en.pdf; http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/news/consulting_public/fundamental_rights_agency/report_public_hearing_en.pdf.
4. Proposal for a Council Regulation establishing a European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights and Proposal for a Council Decision empo wering the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights to pursue its activities in areas referred to in Title VI of the Treaty on European Union (COM(2005) 280 final of 30.6.2005).
5. SEC (2005) 849 of 30.6.2005, atp. 8.