Press Release

New Chairperson of the FRA Management Board elected

FRA 2012
The FRA Management Board on 27 September elected Maija Sakslin as its new Chairperson and Manfred Nowak as Vice-Chairperson.
  • Maija Sakslin, the Finnish member of the FRA Management Board, is Finland’s Deputy Parliamentary Ombudsman and an expert in constitutional and EU law, especially fundamental social rights and social security coordination in the EU. 
  • Manfred Nowak, Austrian Member of the FRA Management Board, is Professor of International law and Human Rights at Vienna University and Co-Director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights. From 2004 to October 2010, he served as the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture.

The FRA Management Board is the agency’s planning and monitoring body. It is responsible for adopting the agency’s Annual Work Programme, and its Annual Report on fundamental rights in the EU. It also adopts the agency’s budget, monitors the agency’s operations, and appoints independent experts to FRA’s Scientific Committee.

Every Member State appoints one independent expert. FRA Management Board members have experience in managing public or private sector organisations and knowledge of fundamental rights. Two representatives of the European Commission and one independent representative appointed by the Council of Europe also sit on the Board. Croatia, as an EU accession country, sends an observer representative.

Frauke Seidensticker, the Management Board member from Germany, was elected member of FRA’s Executive Board. Another member will be elected during the December Management Board meeting. The Executive Board assists the Management Board and the FRA Director in their decision making. It also includes the Management Board Chairperson and Vice-Chairperson, as well as a European Commission and the Council of Europe representative.

 

Notes to the editors:

  • The complete list of FRA Management Board members is available online at http://fra.europa.eu/en/about-fra/structure/management-board/members
  • The FRA Management Board meets twice a year. Members are not paid by FRA and only receive travel expenses and a daily allowance.
  • Management Board Members are nominated for a period of 5 years. 15 new members have just been appointed by their respective Member States. For more see FRA Founding Regulation, Art. 29(2)c.

 

Please follow the links for the German and the French versions, or download the PDF versions.