(Originally posted on the MultiRights blog 21 June 2012. Click here to view the original post.)

As noted by Antoine Buyse over at the ECHR blog, the parliamentarians of Europe recently welcomed the decision by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers¹ to resume the negotiations on the European Union’s accession to the ECHR. The most interesting parts of the press release from the joint informal body² of members of the European Parliament and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) reads as follows:³

“A joint informal body of members of the European Parliament and Council of Europe parliamentarians has welcomed the prospect of talks resuming on EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

[…]

The two co-chairs of the Joint Informal Body, Pietro Marcenaro and Carlo Casini, said it was “of the utmost importance” that these negotiations reach a speedy conclusion and that the momentum towards an agreement is not lost.

‘EU accession to the ECHR is crucial with a view to securing a common space for human rights protection across the European continent,’ they said. ‘It is thus essential that the modalities of such accession are completed at a political level as rapidly as possible, and that all outstanding questions are settled.’”

Continue reading “European Parliamentarians welcomes the EU’s accession to the ECHR” →

As mentioned in an earlier post on this blog, where an overview of the negotiation process was given, the EU’s internal negotiations on the draft Agreement on the Accession of the European Union to the ECHR have been concluded. Thus, it was assumed that the negotiations would continue in a forum that would also include the non-EU member states. Exactly how and when was nevertheless unclear.

Continue reading “Negotiations on the EU’s Accession to the ECHR to be finalized “without delay”” →