The European Union’s Joint Statement to the Conference of Minister of Justice of the Council of Europe.

On the 10th December 2025, 27 member states of the European Union delivered a Joint Statement to the Conference of Minister of Justice of the Council of Europe.

As EPO, we are monitoring this statement, because it wants to reshape the human rights framework.
We are specifically concerned where the Statement calls for the notion of “inhuman and degrading treatment” under Article 3 of the ECHR to be “constrained to the most serious issues,” so that the states can grant extraditions also in cases that raise issues concerning prison conditions. The mutual trust principle and the European Arrest Warrant system, actually, were an opportunity to put prison conditions in Europe under the spotlight: this is a clear attempt to push prisons back into the shadows.

The human rights guaranteed in the European Convention for Human Rights are one the most important assurance and cannot be discussed.

Here's the full Statement in English