Joint Statement - More than idle words: time for EU Member States to commit to the rights of all children in and outside the EU!

Joint Statement

More than idle words: time for EU Member States to commit to the rights of all children in and outside the EU!

Children in the EU and the world need and deserve a strong political commitment to uphold and protect their rights. Following the launch of the ambitious EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child by the European Commission, child rights advocates express their deep disappointment and alarm at Member States’ recent failure to reach agreement on a set of Council Conclusions.

The EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, one of the key flagship initiatives aiming at ensuring all children in and outside the EU have equal rights and opportunities, has been warmly welcomed by children’s rights advocates. The meaningful involvement of children and young people and civil society organisations in the design of the strategy is a particularly encouraging precedent.

It is therefore deeply regrettable that European Member States have failed, on 7 October 2021, to adopt Council Conclusions in support of the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, in spite of their international and EU obligations to uphold children’s rights1. In line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC), the EU treaties and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, to which all EU Member States are bound, all children are entitled to the protection of their rights without reservation or any form of discrimination.

Read the full statement here.