Hey, ladies and gentlemen, we are very pleased to have with us Dr. Alexander Corniceoff today.

He is a referend there for the Bulgarian judge in the Court of Justice.

He has a law degree from the University of Sophia, an L.M, from the College of Europe in Rouge,

and a PhD from the Academy of Science in Bulgaria.

He has great practical experience in EU law and trade law as a former member of the Brussels Bar and since 2007 has now been an active referend there at the Court of Justice.

Welcome Alexander and we're looking forward to your talk. Thank you.

I should probably start with the usual disclaimer that the views expressed today are my personal

views, so don't take it as the official view of the European Court of Justice.

None of that.

Now the question of the forthcoming EU accession to the European Convention of Human Rights,

as we all know, is no longer open for discussion.

So the question of whether and why the EU should or should not exceed to the Convention has been already decided

that chapter is closed, as we know, with the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, Article

6, paragraph 2 of the Treaty on the European Union, now provides that the European Union

shall accede to the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental

Freedoms. Nonetheless, the question of, on what terms, on what conditions the EU should

accede to the Convention is still very much an open issue. The forthcoming EU accession to the ECHR, a myriad of problems, few solutions.

This is the topic of my presentation.

And I have to confess that this is actually the least pessimistic title that I could come up with.

The more I look into the issue, the more I dig into it, the more it looks like a real conundrum.

A myriad of problems indeed start popping up immediately, while unfortunately very few solutions

seem to be immediately apparent.

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