The launch of the €108 million (£72 million) Agency for Fundamental Rights was toasted by EU officials in Vienna yesterday but condemned as a folly of European empire-building by critics from across the political spectrum.

Dismissed by Amnesty International as a missed opportunity and by the Conservatives as pointless, the agency’s 50 staff will monitor human rights across the 27-nation EU, alongside the Council of Europe, which was set up for a similar purpose in 1949.

Critics of the agency believe that it should not have been built because one of its core aims is to enforce the Charter of Fundamental Rights, which formed part of the EU constitution that was voted down in France and the Netherlands.

Germany is keen to revive the constitution in a slimmed-down form, and one of the possible casualties is the charter. British diplomats argue that the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights should be enough to guarantee the rights of EU citizens.

Franco Frattini, the EU Justice Commissioner, said that the agency embodied the values rejected in the EU constitution. He said: “A Europe that refuses to embrace its values, the values of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, is a Europe condemned to lose.

“There are those who would exploit our differences. Respecting different cultures is vital, but respect for fundamental individual rights must prevail.”

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