Pristina, February 20th, 2024 – Deputy Ombudsperson, Mr. Niman Hajdari, participated in a round table with the deputies of the European Parliament organized by the European Network of National Institutions for Human Rights (ENNHRI).

The meeting was held in the European Parliament and the topic of the meeting was “New partnership for the rule of law, democracy and human rights in the EU enlargement countries”.

The purpose of the meeting was to exchange views with various representatives of the European Union (EU) the national rule of law situations, sharing knowledge on their varied work as independent monitors and safeguards for the rule of law.

The meeting was attended by seven National Institutions for Human Rights – Albania, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova, which presented the various challenges related to the rule of law in their countries in relation to rights and human freedoms.

The chairman of this meeting was deputy Andreas Schider from Austria, who is also the chairman of the delegation for relations with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. The meeting was also attended by MEPs Tonino Picula (Croatia), rapporteur of the European Parliament regarding the new EU enlargement strategy, Thijs Ruten, from the Committee for Foreign Affairs in the European Parliament (Netherlands), Matjaz Nemec (Slovenia). , member of the Delegation of the Parliamentary Commission for EU-Serbia Stabilization and Association.

Mr. Hajdari spoke about the state of human rights in Kosovo, and in particular about the importance of the country’s membership in the Council of Europe, since this membership would offer the citizens of the country the opportunity to turn to the European Court for Human Rights (ECHR).

At the end of the meeting, the general secretary of ENNHRI defined some points on how the new EU-ENNHRI partnership will look like. According to her, this partnership should guarantee and be based on the following points:

• NHRIs have strong support as part of the human rights and rule of law infrastructure in each enlargement country.
• Effective and independent functioning of NHRIs is a rule of law indicator/benchmark in enlargement negotiations.
• Accession negotiations systematically address challenges faced by NHRIs.
• NHRIs participate in developing and monitoring measures to advance implementation of the Copenhagen criteria.

At the end of the meeting, the members of the European Parliament proposed that such meetings be held in the future.