In line with established EU practice, the Swedish Presidency...

In line with established EU practice, the Swedish Presidency of the European Union on May 10, 2001 made a demarche to the U.S. Administration presenting the EU positions of principle on the death penalty. "As has been previously expressed by a number of EU Presidencies, The European Union is deeply concerned about the high number of executions in the United States. The Union calls on the U.S. government to consider further steps towards the abolition of the death penalty. The EU expresses its satisfaction that no federal executions have taken place in the U.S. since 1963, and is concerned that executions may now be resumed, ending a thirty-eight year de facto moratorium. The EU calls upon the U.S. government to consider ways to ensure that the long halt on federal executions continues to be the norm, including a federal moratorium on federal executions. In individual cases, the EU makes clemency demarches is cases involving: persons below the age of eighteen at the time of committing the crime; mentally retarded persons; foreign nationals, whose rights under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations have not been respected; and EU citizens, particularly when any of the above issues is involved.