The For­eign Af­fairs Coun­cil of the Eu­ro­pean Union (EU) has adopt­ed a Strate­gic Frame­work on Hu­man Rights and Democ­ra­cy with an ac­tion plan for putting it in­to prac­tice. This is the first time that the EU has had a uni­fied strate­gic frame­work for this vi­tal pol­i­cy area, with such a wide-rang­ing plan of ac­tion for its im­ple­men­ta­tion.

"Hu­man rights are one of my top pri­or­i­ties and a sil­ver thread runs through every­thing that we do in ex­ter­nal re­la­tions," said Cather­ine Ash­ton, High Rep­re­sen­ta­tive for For­eign Af­fairs and Se­cu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy/Vice-Pres­i­dent of the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion. "With this com­pre­hen­sive pack­age, we want to en­hance the ef­fec­tive­ness and vis­i­bil­i­ty of EU hu­man rights pol­i­cy.

"In or­der to help put the frame­work and the ac­tion plan in­to prac­tice, I have al­so pro­posed the ap­point­ment of an EU Spe­cial Rep­re­sen­ta­tive on Hu­man Rights and I look for­ward to a swift ap­point­ment." The frame­work sets out prin­ci­ples, ob­jec­tives and pri­or­i­ties, all de­signed to im­prove the ef­fec­tive­ness and con­sis­ten­cy of EU pol­i­cy as a whole in the next ten years.

It pro­vides an agreed ba­sis for a tru­ly col­lec­tive ef­fort, in­volv­ing EU mem­ber states as well as the EU in­sti­tu­tions. The strate­gic frame­work al­so an­chors a com­mit­ment to gen­uine part­ner­ship with civ­il so­ci­ety. The frame­work is al­so de­signed to be as read­able as pos­si­ble, so as to be ac­ces­si­ble to all cit­i­zens.

The strate­gic frame­work builds on the joint com­mu­ni­ca­tion ti­tled "Hu­man rights and democ­ra­cy at the heart of EU ex­ter­nal ac­tion-to­wards a more ef­fec­tive ap­proach." This was adopt­ed by the Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion on De­cem­ber 12, 2011, fol­low­ing a pro­pos­al by Ash­ton. It was, in turn, the re­sult of a lengthy process of con­sul­ta­tions, dat­ing back to the in­for­mal meet­ing of the EU for­eign min­is­ters at Cor­do­ba in March 2010.