On 6 December 2012, High Commissioner Navi Pillay delivered keynote speeches at the two main human rights events of the European Union – the annual Fundamental Rights Conference, on the internal dimension, and the annual EU-NGO Forum, on the external dimension of the EU’s human rights policies.

ollowing her meeting with members of the European Expert Group on Transition from Institutional to Community-based Care (EEG) in Brussels on 6 December 2012, High Commissioner Pillay has sent letters in support of such a transition to all EU Member States.

High Commissioner Pillay was the keynote speaker at the conference on Non-discrimination and Development, organized by the European Commission on 1 June 2012 in Brussels. While addressing all forms and grounds of discrimination, the event focused above all on the rights of LGBTI persons. The High Commissioner acknowledged that Europe has been in the vanguard of LGBTI rights but also mentioned some East European countries where troubling proposals for laws have been tabled. She emphasized that such proposals were wrong and that, if adopted, such legislation would make open discussion of sexual orientation all but impossible.

On 7 May 2012, the Regional Office for Europe of OHCHR hosted a colloquium entitled “CRPD and EU Structural Funds: the right to independent living”.

On 30-31 January 2012, OHCHR hosted the first meeting of the Roma Civil Society Group on the Right to Health as part of the inter-agency project “Scaling up action towards MDGs 4 and 5 in the context of the Decade of Roma Inclusion and in support of National Roma Integration Strategies”.

On 22 November 2011, government and civil society representatives from 18 countries from Central and Eastern Europe gathered in Prague for a sub-regional workshop on the rights of vulnerable children under three years of age organized by the OHCHR Regional Office for Europe in collaboration with UNICEF.

OHCHR Regional Office for Europe is concerned about collective forced evictions of Roma and Travellers which are increasingly becoming an openly acknowledged policy of choice in some European countries.

OHCHR Regional Office for Europe brought representatives of 27 States – EU Member States, candidates for EU membership and other European States – to Brussels for a one-day workshop on the innovations in reporting to International Human Rights Treaty Bodies.