On June 16, 2008, the Council of the European Union (EU) meet­ing in Luxembourg released a state­ment on General Affairs and External Relations. The doc­u­ment con­tained a restate­ment of its 1998 Human Rights Guideline on the death penal­ty. The Council, con­sist­ing of almost all Foreign Ministers in the EU, stat­ed that it ​“reaf­firms that work­ing towards uni­ver­sal abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty con­sti­tutes an inte­gral objec­tive of the EU’s human rights pol­i­cy.” The Council reassert­ed the ​“oppo­si­tion of the European Union to the death penal­ty in all cas­es and in all cir­cum­stances. The abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty con­tributes to the enhance­ment of human dig­ni­ty and the pro­gres­sive devel­op­ment of human rights.”

The Council com­mend­ed the ​“con­sid­er­able progress [that] has been made world­wide towards the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty” in the past 10 years. They added, ​“The adop­tion by the UN General Assembly last year of a cross-region­al ini­tia­tive call­ing for a mora­to­ri­um on the use of the death penal­ty is a sig­nif­i­cant achieve­ment in this regard. At the same time, the Council, ​“regrets that a num­ber of States still main­tain the death penal­ty. We call on all these states to abol­ish the death penal­ty; if nec­es­sary with the imme­di­ate estab­lish­ment of a mora­to­ri­um on the use of the death penal­ty, with a view to abolishing it.”

(“General Affairs and External Relations Press Release,” Council of the European Union, Dimitrij Rupel, President, June 16, 2008). See International.

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