🇬🇧 Abstract (English)
The prospect of the European Union (EU) joining the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) has been a topic of debate for over four decades. Initially, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) concluded in Opinion 2/94 that the EU lacked competence to accede to the ECHR. However, this changed with the Lisbon Treaty, which explicitly granted the EU competence to accede and even imposed a formal obligation to do so.
This treaty provision is supported by Protocol No. 8, which sets out certain constraints, including the requirement to maintain the distinct nature of the EU, particularly its legal autonomy. At the level of the ECHR, Protocol No. 14 introduced Article 59(2), thereby providing the legal basis for the EU to accede to the Convention.
Following these developments, an initial draft accession agreement (DAA 2013) was formulated and submitted for review by the CJEU under Article 218(11) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). In Opinion 2/13, the Court found that this version of the agreement conflicted with the foundational principles of EU law, particularly its autonomy.
Subsequently, the European Commission began addressing the various objections raised by the CJEU, and a revised draft EU accession agreement to the ECHR was agreed upon in March 2023. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the evolution of the European Union’s accession to the European Convention on Human Rights, examines the current state of negotiations, and outlines the key obstacles that continue to impede its finalisation.