Answer given by Vice-President Jourová on behalf of the European Commission

20.5.2020

The Commission has no doubt as regards the integrity and independence of the European Court of Human Rights. The Union’s accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is a priority for the Commission. The European Union seeks to accede to the ECHR in order to strengthen the pan-European system of fundamental rights protection. Accession is thus a cornerstone of creating a pan-European legal space; it will benefit to the individual and Europe as a whole.

Yet, the European Union, which is not a state, can only become a party to the ECHR alongside with its Member States if arrangements are in place which preserve the European Union’s specific characteristic and those of its legal order. The Commission is committed to speedily resume the negotiations with its partners in the Council of Europe, on the basis of the supplementary negotiating directives adopted by the Council on 7 October 2019.

The objective of these negotiations is to bring the draft accession agreement of 2013 in line with the objections raised by the Court of Justice of the European Union in its opinion of December 2014. However, the amendments to the negotiated instruments which the Union will demand are limited to what is strictly necessary to address these objections.