Ensuring Compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights in Legislative Drafting: The Practice of the European Commission

After the Charter of Fundamental Rights acquired legally binding status, the European Commission published a Strategy Paper introducing measures to ensure that all legislative proposals were in conformity with the standards it contains. One of its stated goals was to bolster mutual trust between Member States to facilitate the operation of the area of freedom, security and justice. This article analyses the initiatives introduced by the Commission in light of existing practice to examine whether they have, or could in the future lead to, improved compliance of legislative proposals with the Charter and greater mutual trust in the European Union. It finds that the measures put forward, while a welcome step in the right direction, suffer from several shortcomings, and offers some suggestions on how they might be improved upon.

This article was first published by Sweet and Maxwell Limited in Israel de Jesús Butler: “Ensuring Compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights in Legislative Drafting: The Practice of the European Commission,” European Law Review, Issue 4, 2012, pp 379–418, and is reproduced in agreement with the Publishers.