The "General Affairs and External Relations" Council...

The "General Affairs and External Relations" Council adopted a declaration on the death penalty and particularly cruel forms of execution. In the declaration, which did not contain any reference to a particular State, the European Union expressed concern at the continued application of capital punishment and called for an immediate end to the use of stoning to death and other cruel and inhuman forms of punishment. The EU urged all governments to introduce and maintain moratoria on executions and eventually abolish the use of the death penalty in their domestic legal systems and declared itself to consider as particularly unjustified the use of the death sentence for non-violent crimes. "The European Union's aspiration is to see the death penalty abolished in law and in practice in every country in the world", the declaration stated.