Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, Special Advisor to the European Commission on Children’s Interests, issued a stark warning today about the rise of extremist narratives increasingly targeting children’s rights and the organisations working to defend them.

Addressing a high-level European conference, organised by the German Child and Youth Welfare Association, she said children’s rights, once considered an uncontested pillar of European values, were now being politically manipulated, undermined and dismissed.

The conference — themed Defending Children’s Rights: European Strategies against Right-Wing Populist and Extremist Narratives and Attacks on Civil Society —  included contributions from the Amadeu Antonio Foundation, Eurochild, and Marius Schlageter, vice president of the Advisory Council on Youth of the Council of Europe.

During her intervention, Ms Coleiro Preca called for the urgent creation of an EU Child Rights Observatory, describing it as a necessary democratic safeguard in an era of misinformation and anti-rights campaigns.

“An Observatory must not be simply a technical tool; it is a democratic safeguard. We cannot counter extremist rhetoric with slogans. We must counter it with truth, evidence, and transparency,” she urged.

“A fully fledged EU Child Rights Observatory can ensure children’s rights are not only promised, but actively protected.”

Ms Coleiro Preca added that the Observatory must provide independent EU-wide monitoring, generate reliable and comparable data, issue early warnings when children’s rights are at risk, reinforce civil society actors who faced pressure, and ensure children’s voices were meaningfully integrated into EU decision-making.

Coleiro Preca said children’s rights required a European response because their challenges did not stop at borders, and neither should Europe’s commitment to protecting them.

“Children’s rights are not negotiable. Not conditional. Not ideological. They are fundamental to the very idea of the European project.”