OUR AREAS OF EXPERTISE AND SELECTED PROJECTS
Explore our work across fundamental rights, migration and asylum, security, consumer protection and related areas through selected projects for EU institutions, agencies and public authorities.
Fundamental rights
Fundamental rights are at the heart of the EU legal order and are essential to democratic, inclusive and resilient societies. Ensuring that these rights are protected in law and in practice remains a continuous priority. EU action in this area is grounded in a range of legal and policy instruments, including the EU Treaties, the Charter, EU equality and criminal justice legislation, EU citizenship rules, and policy frameworks addressing racism, Roma equality, gender equality, children’s rights and lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer (LGBTIQ) equality. We are committed to upholding the EU’s core values by supporting the EU institutions to strengthen the legal and policy frameworks that protect and promote fundamental rights across the Union.
We provide legal and policy advice, compliance assessments, evaluations, impact assessments and targeted studies on various fundamental rights related topics. Our work regularly combines legal analysis, country research, stakeholder consultation, policy briefings and workshops, often leading to evidence-based recommendations for strengthening EU and national action.
We carried out a study examining how sanctions for discrimination on grounds of racial or ethnic origin and religion are regulated and applied across the EU. The work combined national legal research, case analysis, stakeholder input and a participatory event to support the development of guidance on effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions. The study resulted in a comparative analysis and practical guidance for stakeholders involved in preventing and addressing discrimination.
Read the study here.
We prepared a complementary impact assessment of the proposed Council Directive on equal treatment outside employment, covering discrimination on grounds of religion or belief, disability, age and sexual orientation. The study assessed the EU added value, coherence, effectiveness and efficiency of the proposal, covering all 27 Member States and including in-depth case studies of Czechia, Germany, Italy, Romania and Sweden.
Read the study here.
Together with our network of experts, we provide data collection and research services on fundamental rights issues in Hungary under FRANET.
We have been the Hungarian FRANET contractor, with a short interruption, since 2014. The current framework contract supports FRA through information requests, short and extensive thematic reports, ad hoc analytical reports, review services, meeting attendance and qualitative fieldwork research. The work covers a broad range of fundamental rights issues and combines legal and policy analysis, data collection, in-depth interviews, case studies and country-level expertise to support FRA’s comparative research and evidence base on fundamental rights across the EU.
Migration and asylum
Migration and asylum are among the most dynamic and politically sensitive areas of EU policy, sitting at the intersection of border management, fundamental rights, social cohesion and the Union’s external relations. Ensuring a migration and asylum framework that is effective, humane and grounded in the rule of law remains a continuous priority, particularly as the EU implements the Pact on Migration and Asylum and responds to evolving migratory pressures at its external borders.
EU action in this area is grounded in a range of legal and policy instruments, including the EU Treaties, the Charter, the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) and the instruments adopted under the Pact on Migration and Asylum, the Schengen Borders Code (SBC), EU legal migration directives, the Return Directive, and policy frameworks on integration, resettlement and cooperation with third countries. The EU’s response is reinforced by the work of agencies such as EUAA, Frontex and FRA, and must be implemented in full respect of the principle of non-refoulement and other fundamental rights guarantees.
We are committed to supporting the EU institutions to strengthen the legal and policy frameworks that govern migration and asylum across the Union, ensuring that reforms are evidence-based, legally sound and consistent with the EU’s core values.
Milieu provides the EU institutions with legal and policy advice, compliance assessments, evaluations, impact assessments, fundamental rights analyses and targeted studies across the full spectrum of migration and asylum topics, from international protection procedures and reception conditions to legal migration and labour mobility, border management, integration of beneficiaries of international protection (BIP) and the external dimension of migration. Our work regularly combines legal analysis, comparative country research, stakeholder consultation, policy briefings and workshops, often leading to evidence-based recommendations for strengthening EU and national action, including the development of policy options for new regulatory initiatives and assessments of the fundamental rights implications of existing and proposed measures.
Practitioners working on asylum, borders and immigration must navigate a complex and rapidly evolving body of EU and Council of Europe law, including the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). To make this acquis accessible to judges, prosecutors, lawyers, border guards and other officials, FRA, together with the ECtHR, produces and periodically updates the Handbook on European law relating to asylum, borders and immigration.
In 2026, we supported FRA to update the Handbook, following the adoption of the Pact on Asylum and Migration, providing legal research and updated drafting on the relevant EU asylum, borders and immigration acquis, and related ECtHR and CJEU case-law. See updated Handbook here.
The Seasonal Workers Directive (2014/36/EU) establishes the conditions of entry and stay for third-country nationals coming to the EU for seasonal employment and grants them equal treatment with national workers on a range of working conditions. However, evaluations and the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed persistent vulnerabilities of third-country national seasonal workers.
We supported the European Commission to analyse the problem, then develop and assess policy options for better protection of third-country national seasonal workers. The work combined legal analysis of the current EU framework, comparative research across Member States on the implementation and enforcement of the Seasonal Workers Directive, stakeholder consultation with national authorities, social partners, employers and civil society organisations, and an assessment of the economic, social and fundamental rights impacts of a range of policy options.
We assessed the completeness and conformity of national transposition measures across the bound Member States. The work involved detailed legal analysis of national legislation against each provision of the recast EU Blue Card Directive, preparation of country compliance reports and a comparative analysis identifying the main conformity issues across the Member States.
The work built on our longstanding experience with conformity assessments of the EU’s legal migration acquis, including the Students and Researchers Directive (2016/801/EU), Seasonal Workers Directive (2014/36/EU), Intra-Corporate Transfer Directive (2014/66/EU) and the Single Permit Directive.
The assessment supported the European Commission with monitoring transposition and, where necessary, pursuing infringement proceedings.
Security
Security is a core area of EU action, particularly in a Union without internal borders, where organised crime, trafficking in human beings, terrorism and other serious cross-border threats require effective cooperation between Member States. EU action seeks to strengthen the ability of law enforcement and judicial authorities to prevent, detect and investigate crime, while ensuring that security measures remain anchored in the protection of fundamental rights, data protection and the rule of law.
EU law and policy in this area is grounded in a range of instruments addressing police cooperation, information exchange, anti-money laundering, terrorist financing, trafficking in human beings and the rights of victims and suspects. These include the PNR Directive (2016/681/EU), the Prüm framework, the Swedish Initiative, the Anti-Trafficking Directive (2024/1712/EU), EU anti-money laundering legislation and EU strategies addressing organised crime, trafficking in human beings and the Security Union. We support the EU institutions to assess whether these instruments are correctly implemented, effective in practice and coherent with wider EU legal and policy objectives. We regularly provide the EU institutions with legal and policy advice, compliance assessments, evaluations, implementation studies and targeted research in the field of security. Our work combines legal analysis, country research, comparative assessment, stakeholder consultation and policy recommendations, supporting EU action to combat serious crime while safeguarding fundamental rights.
We assessed how the 27 EU Member States and the United Kingdom (UK) in respect of Northern Ireland criminalise and sanction offences related to the illicit manufacture and trafficking of firearms, their parts, components and ammunition, as well as illegal possession of firearms.
The study examined the extent to which national legal frameworks provide for criminal and/or administrative sanctions in line with the Firearms Directive (2021/555/EU) and the United Nations (UN) Firearms Protocol. The work combined legal mapping, desk research, data collection, national country fiches and comparative analysis, resulting in a detailed overview of prosecution and sanctioning systems across the EU and Northern Ireland to support the Commission in considering possible further action in this area.
We assessed the conformity of national laws in the 25 Member States bound by the Directive on combating money laundering by criminal law (2018/1673/EU). The study examined whether Member States had correctly transposed the directive’s requirements into their national legal frameworks, supporting the Commission to identify possible compliance gaps and consider any necessary follow-up action. The work consisted of detailed conformity checks and legal analysis and contributed to the evidence base for the Commission’s evaluation report on the directive, including its EU added value and impact on fundamental rights and freedoms.
We contributed to an EY-led study supporting the preparation of the European Commission’s impact assessment on EU policy initiatives on asset recovery and confiscation. The study examined possible revisions to the EU framework on freezing and confiscation of criminal assets and the role of Asset Recovery Offices in tracing and identifying illicit assets. It defined the main problems, developed policy objectives and assessed policy options, including non-legislative and legislative measures, against criteria such as effectiveness, economic and social impacts, and impacts on procedural rights. Our work contributed to the evidence base through desk research, stakeholder consultation, workshops, questionnaires, qualitative and quantitative analysis, policy option assessment and report drafting.
Consumer protection
Consumer policy is central to a fair, competitive and sustainable internal market. Well-designed consumer rules help people to make informed choices, strengthen trust in businesses and digital markets and ensure that consumers are protected when markets evolve quickly. They are increasingly important for the green and circular economy, where consumers need reliable information on durability, reparability and environmental performance to participate meaningfully in the transition to more sustainable consumption. We support EU institutions and public authorities in the development, implementation analysis and evaluation of consumer protection legislation, with a particular focus on how EU rules operate in practice across Member States. We combine EU-level legal expertise with a network of national legal experts, enabling robust comparative analysis across the Member States. Our work spans the EU consumer acquis, from rules on consumer contracts, unfair commercial practices (Directive 2005/29/EC), consumer sales and guarantees, to product safety, repair, environmental claims and enforcement of consumer rights. Our projects are closely tied to recent initiatives strengthening the link between consumer protection and the circular economy, notably the Directive on empowering consumers for the green transition (2024/825/EU) and the Directive on common rules promoting the repair of goods (2024/1799/EU). We also address the fast-emerging needs of digital markets and services.
We managed the legal tasks in this EU-wide study, mapping national initiatives that empower consumers, assessing the existing EU legal framework and analysing the legal feasibility of options for EU legislative action and their coherence with existing EU consumer law.
Read the study here.
We developed and reviewed the content on the implementation of consumer law legislation in EU Member States, including case-law, to update the Consumer Law Database hosted on the European e-Justice Portal.
We carried out the legal analysis for an EU-wide study on residential prosumers: households that both consume and produce renewable energy, covering the regulatory frameworks across all EU Member States, Norway and Iceland. The study examined the drivers of self-consumption, legal and practical barriers, incentives, permitting conditions, metering, billing and the costs and benefits of residential prosumer models.
Read the study here. We are also carrying out a study for the Directorate-General for Energy (DG ENER) on the operation of the Citizen Energy Advisory Hub (CEAH), providing technical assistance to support citizen participation in energy markets. The project aims to assist citizens and their trusted intermediaries (including individuals, small business owners, social economy actors, local authorities, energy communities, etc.) wishing to set up or facilitate citizen energy projects. Support is provided across technical, regulatory, communication and outreach, organisational, financial and administrative aspects, with the goal of encouraging the development of such initiatives. Citizen energy projects may include renewable energy production, energy efficiency measures, demand response, and citizen energy dialogues