“On the European and World Day against the Death Penalty, the
European Union and the Council of Europe reaffirm their strong and absolute
opposition to capital punishment in all cases and under all circumstances, and
their commitment to its worldwide abolition. We are deeply concerned about
setbacks in some countries, such as recent mass trials leading to a vast number
of death sentences, the extension in domestic legislation of the scope of the
death penalty’s use, or the resumption of executions after a period of several
years.

No execution has taken place in our Member States in the past 17 years.
The European Union and the Council of Europe welcome the fact that all Member
States of the European Union have now ratified both Protocols 6 and 13 to the
European Convention on Human Rights, and urge all other European States that
have not yet done so to sign and ratify these instruments which aim at the
abolition of the death penalty.

The European Union and the Council of Europe deeply regret the recent
executions carried out by Belarus, the only European country that applies this
form of punishment. They strongly urge Belarus to commute the sentences of the
two remaining persons sentenced to death in 2013, and to establish a moratorium
on executions as a first step towards abolition of the death penalty.

Both organisations welcome the recent steps taken by the African Union
towards the adoption of an Additional Protocol to the African Charter on Human
and Peoples’ Rights on the Abolition of the Death Penalty. They welcome that
recent ratifications of the Second Optional Protocol to the International
Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 15 December 1989, aiming at the
abolition of the death penalty, have brought the number of States Parties to
eighty-one. They encourage all States which have not yet done so to ratify this
protocol on the occasion of its 25th anniversary in 2014.

The European Union and Council of Europe call on all Members of the
United Nations to support the Resolution on a moratorium on the use of the
death penalty which will be put to vote at the 69th session of the UN General
Assembly in December 2014.”