CYIL 2011

JANA KRÁLOVÁ CYIL 2 ȍ2011Ȏ EU law. Moreover, this reassurance will not prejudice the potential coordination of Member States’ positions also in these latter matters should a political will for such coordination appear. As a consequence of the intended modification of the Rules of the Committee, the non-EU Parties to the Convention will have a decisive role in the adoption of resolutions concerning judgments against the EU. This guarantee could thus be perceived as more questionable than the first one. However, as the formal voting is used only exceptionally at the Committee, the modified Rules will apply only very rarely. Therefore, this guarantee appears to be a quite satisfactory compromise compensating the non-EU Parties to the Convention for the specificities of the EU arising from its legal system VI. Conclusion The Agreement on the Accession of the EU to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms has an important number of specificities. The procedural ones arise from the fact that the EU Member States have not only formulated the EU position within the Council of the EU but at the same time they have participated in the negotiations within the Council of Europe as one of the Contracting Parties to the Convention. Another uncommon aspect seems to consist of the two simultaneous effects that the entry into force of the Accession Agreement will have: the Convention will be modified in order to permit the accession of the Union and, at the same time, the EU will be included among the Parties to the Convention. As regards the modifications of the Convention system that the EU’s accession will bring, the most important is certainly the introduction of the co-respondent mechanism with the prior involvement of the CJEU. For the EU, these unprecedented instruments are a necessity arising from the complex system of implementation of EU law by EU Member States and the application of such law by EU institutions. It seems that the EU managed to convince the non-EU Parties to the Convention that these mechanisms do not create any inequitable benefits for the EU and its Member States but correspond only to the specificities of the EU legal system. However, its requirements as concerns the functioning of these mechanisms had to be reconciled with the characteristics of the system of the Convention. In my opinion, the draft Accession Agreement as agreed by the CDDH-UE represents a balanced compromise. The Agreement is subject to approval by the institutions of the Council of Europe and by the Union, and especially to ratification by all of the Contracting Parties to the Convention. Therefore, there is still a long way to go for the Agreement to enter into force. However, it is only after the EU becomes a Party to the Convention that it will be possible to evaluate whether the above mentioned specific mechanisms successfully contribute to preserving the specificities of EU law and to assess the effects of the joint participation of the EU and its Member States in the Convention system.

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