Samenvatting

This paper examines the long anticipated European Union accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the establishment of an actual launch of the process enabling such accession after so many years from the time it was first proposed. Further, it goes on to examine the different mechanisms offered by the Convention itself and the Union in relation to the protection of human rights and the reasons for EU accession to the ECHR. It continues by presenting the legal basis required in order to enable the opening of accession negotiations and how it was achieved. It then discusses the envisaged impacts of the Union's accession to the ECHR as seen from a legal, political and EU citizens' point of view. Further on, potential problems and difficulties are observed and the relation between the two European courts, namely the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights, is studied; the inter-institutional procedure for concluding the agreement on the accession of the EU to the Convention is also examined. Finally, a conclusion is made and some recommendations are offered.