European Union: Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World in 2014

The Council of the European Union has adopted the EU Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World in 2014. Throughout 2014, the EU addressed many human rights violations around the world with its extensive network of 139 EU Delegations.

The High Representative and the EU Special Representative for Human Rights, Stavros Lambrinidis, engaged in formal human rights dialogues and consultations with 37 partner countries and regional groupings, built relations with countries in transition and regional partners, upgraded the EU's visibility and engagement with multilateral and regional human rights mechanisms, cooperated with and empowered civil society.

During this challenging year, the EU remained committed to promoting key EU priorities, in particular those reflected in EU human rights guidelines and on other issues such as freedom of expression offline and online, women's human rights, a human rights based approach to development, work against torture, abolition of the death penalty, and business and human rights.

The annual report, as a comprehensive summary of all the EU issues on human rights and democracy in 2014, presents the situation of implementing EU priorities on human rights and all EU external policies with more than 140 countries around the world, aims at improving the effectiveness and consistency of the EU's human rights policy and placing human rights and democracy at the core of the Union's external action.