The European Union is finalizing its bid to join the European Convention on Human Rights, a decades-old treaty setting human rights standards that’s already been ratified by 46 European countries.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Charles Michel made the announcement together on Wednesday during a rare joint speech.
“We would like to strengthen cooperation with the Council of Europe, and to that effect we are in the process of joining the European Convention on Human Rights,” Michel said from the Council of Europe’s summit in Reykjavik, Iceland.
“I am optimistic that we will be able to solve the remaining difficulties very quickly,” he added.
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Speaking directly after Michel, von der Leyen doubled down, saying: “I want to confirm the European Union’s intention to join the European Convention on Human Rights as soon as possible.”
The back-to-back speeches from the EU’s two top officials were their second joint public appearance this week, after a press conference on Monday in Brussels — a rare occurrence for the two leaders, whose personal relationship has been marred with tensions.
All EU member countries are part of the European Convention on Human Rights — which is the founding treaty of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).
The convention is part of the Council of Europe (CoE), an intergovernmental organization that was created after World War II to protect human rights on the Continent. It is separate from the EU, and includes numerous countries that are not a part of the EU, such as the United Kingdom and Ukraine. (Russia was excluded from the CoE after it invaded Ukraine.)
Although all of the CoE’s 46 members have ratified the European Convention on Human Rights, the EU itself has not signed the treaty — preventing individuals from taking EU institutions to the Strasbourg-based court over human rights violations.
Discussions for the EU as a whole to join the convention have been ongoing since the 1970s. Accession negotiations between the European Council and the Council of Europe were formally relaunched in June 2020, after the Lisbon Treaty made it a legal obligation.
Although being part of the convention is not a formal condition to join the EU, every single one of the EU’s member countries has joined the convention since the creation of the EU — including the U.K., which is still a party to the court, despite regular pushback from the Tories.
Michel also announced that the bloc was “in the process” of joining the Istanbul Convention on combating violence against women, saying the Swedish presidency of the Council of the EU was “working hard” to conclude negotiations within the Council “in the next few weeks.”
All current member countries have signed the Istanbul Convention, although six — Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia — have yet to ratify the treaty.