European day against the death penalty

Today, March 10th, was to be proclaimed a "European Day against the Death Penalty" by the EU. However the initiative failed after Poland exercised its power of veto. Adelheid Wölfl criticises Poland's blocking manoeuvre: "In the Polish election campaign both the PiS and the Samoobrona (Self-Defence) party support the death penalty for sex murderers for populist reasons. That's bad enough, but their attitude reveals something much worse, namely that they have failed to understand the achievements of Europe's Enlightenment or the lessons the two world wars and the dictatorships have taught us. One of the cornerstones of modern Europe is the tenet that the death penalty is incompatible with human rights. It's disgraceful that fifty years after its founding, the European Community still hasn't reached a consensus on this issue."

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