EU a step closer to ECHR accession

Draft agreement allows for the EU to abide by rulings issued by the ECHR

Agreement is in sight on the European Union’s accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). After nearly a year of negotiations, a text has been drafted that seeks to resolve the complex geometry of the EU’s relations with the Council of Europe, which constitutes the framework for the convention. 

According to the Lisbon treaty, the EU must join the convention as a way of bolstering citizens’ rights. European Commission and Council of Europe officials on Tuesday (26 July) outlined the proposed mechanisms for some of the institutional challenges raised – notably establishing a hierarchy between different courts.

The draft agreement allows for the EU to abide by rulings issued by the ECHR. It envisages that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the ECHR will be involved, alongside national courts, in reviewing challenges to EU laws, questioning whether they are compatible with the convention. However, the ECHR will have the final say on cases it handles. The EU will be entitled to have one judge on the ECHR bench, and 18 MEPs will be allowed to take part in the selection procedure in the Council of Europe’s parliamentary assembly.

Council seat

Under the plans, the EU will be entitled to a seat at the committee of ministers, the Council of Europe’s decision-making body, which also supervises the execution by its member states of all ECHR judgments, and which can adopt critical resolutions as sanctions for non-compliance.

The draft accord will need the backing of the committee of ministers and parliamentary assembly. In the autumn, the Commission is expected to ask the ECJ’s opinion on the accord, after which the EU’s Council of Ministers and MEPs will have to give their approval. Only then will the accord be sent for ratification to the Council of Europe’s 47 member states and the EU’s 27 member states.

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