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The future accession of the European Union to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms represents an important and complexes issue, in the same time a political and juridical issue .The evolution of the accessing took a certain course which involved: the confirmation from the Luxembourg judge of the fact that the fundamental rights are an integrant part of the general law principles whose respect is assured by the Court, which inspires itself from the common constitutional traditions of the member states and also from the international instruments regarding the protection of human rights that the member states adhered to; then the legal affirmation by the European Single Act Preamble, the Maastricht Treaty, the Amsterdam Treaty, the elaboration of the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights, up to the dispositions of the Constitution for Europe, which make provisions of the future accession to the Convention, taken over by the new Treaty amending the Treaty on the European Union and the Treaty establishing a European Community. At the present, the most important values and mechanisms for the human rights protection are mentioned in Lisbon Treaty and the Charter of Fundamental Rights. By making fundamental rights clearer and more visible, the Charter helps to develop the concept of citizenship of the European Union and to create an area of freedom, security and justice. It enhances legal certainty as regards the protection of fundamental rights, where in the past such protection was guaranteed only by the case law of the Court of Justice and art.6 of the European Union Treaty. So, the accession to the Convention implies numerous problems, political, social, financial, that need to be solved from a practical and judicial point of view. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Between 2002 and 2003, a European constitutional convention drafted a constitution for Europe. Two actors in particular influenced the negotiations in the Convention: the President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and the Praesidium. We first examine how the Praesidium was able to structure the agenda inside the Convention due to the absence of voting on amendments. The Praesidium was able to conclude every particular proposal-amendment round by accepting, rejecting or amending proposed amendments. We then analyze cases which show how the Presidency was able to control the agenda of the Convention. By investigating institutions, we demonstrate that the Presidency used several tricks to manipulate the result. We find evidence that (1) the Presidency filtered proposed amendments, considering only some of them, (2) it determined consensus in the Convention without saying how many members approve of a particular measure, and (3) it juxtaposed proposed amendments and concluded that the Praesidium proposal constitutes the best compromise.The second part of our agenda-setting analysis complements these cases by examining the timing of the Praesidium proposals. Analyzing the entire set of amendments in the Convention, we show that the Praesidium structured the agenda by presenting its draft proposals in multiple sequences. While the Praesidium could have proposed the entire constitution at once, such an iterated procedure resulted in fewer amendments over time. This suggests that timing was used for strategic reasons by the Praesidium. We support our hypothesis by showing that (1) some of the most important issues were presented at the end of the Convention, and that (2) the actual timing of proposals does not correlate highly with either the initial timetable or with the final constitution. We conclude that in the absence of majority or unanimity voting, agenda control mattered and thus the possibility of political manipulation. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explanations of the outcomes of the recent EU Convention on the future of Europe cannot rely on the same assumptions that drive explanations of the output of the Intergovernmental Conferences (IGCs) of the EU. The convention format, intended to ?democratize? the process of amending treaties in the EU, has created new roles for participants in this process, and indeed has introduced new participants into the process. Furthermore, the convention format is relatively new, making generalizations about its processes and outputs difficult. This paper offers an initial contribution to building theory about the output of EU conventions by asking how successfully the 2002-03 Convention addressed one of its main challenges, creating proposals to bring the EU ?closer to its citizens?. The regions of the EU have long been seen as critical to legitimate and effective EU governance, enmeshed in long-standing debates about how to improve the relationship between European citizens and EU institutions. Focusing on the role of regional actors in the Convention, this analysis offers an explanation for the failure of regions to achieve more than modest reforms of their role in EU governance, and why the Convention ultimately ?constitutionalized? the role of regions in the ways that it did. Three factors shaped the Convention?s output on regions: the organization and working practices of the Convention, the broader concerns about the project of constitution writing of the main EU institutions, and the incoherence of the regional participants? positions on key issues. Although we may not be able to derive sufficient conditions for successful convention outcomes from these factors, we may identify some necessary conditions. The failure of EU regions to secure significant reforms derives primarily from these conditions and provides a cautionary tale for possible future conventions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]