At the end of 2014, the CJEU issued the Opinion 2/13, in which it found the Draft Agreement on EU Accession to the ECHR in its submitted form to be incompatible with EU primary law. With the CJEU's negative opinion, the possibility of fulfilling the contractual obligation set out in Article 6(2) TEU, which obliges the EU to accede to the ECHR, was called into question.
This master's thesis focuses on finding solutions to the above situation and the EU' s possible course of action on the accession project. Although the thesis is in principle future-oriented – a perspective after the Opinion 2/13 – the introductory part is dedicated to reviewing the history of the accession. A brief overview of the development of human rights in the EU and of the steps leading from the very idea of EU accession to the ECHR to the Draft Agreement serves as a good starting point for analysis of the Opinion 2/13 and the individual concerns raised therein by the CJEU.
The individual solutions available to the EU in the efforts to coordinate its contractual obligation to accede to the ECHR with the negative Opinion 2/13 are analysed in the main part of this thesis, whereby each solution is critically assessed according to the findings in the previous chapters.
The conclusion provides a reflection on how each of the presented solutions would affect the further development of human rights in the EU and whether the accession to the ECHR is still the best way forward even after the issuance of the negative Opinion 2/13.
|
