Back in 2010, parliament welcomed the prospect of EU accession to the European convention on human rights (ECHR) as an historic opportunity to coordinate a common framework for human rights across the continent and within the union.
During that parliamentary term, I drafted the foreign affairs committee opinion on the institutional aspects of EU accession to the ECHR. We appreciated that this would make it possible to safeguard human rights and fundamental freedoms for EU citizens and member states on the same basis, and also to establish an additional external control system for human rights in the EU.
We also expressed hope that this would ensure the harmonious development of the case-law of the European court of justice (ECJ) and the European court of human rights (ECtHR).
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Since the promotion of respect for human rights - a core value of the union as enshrined in its founding treaty - constitutes common ground for its relations with third countries, we took the view that accession would further enhance citizens' confidence in the EU and its credibility in talks on human rights with other states.
Five years on, and EU accession remains in limbo. In its opinion published last December, the ECJ found that the draft accession treaty to the ECHR, painfully negotiated for three years with the 47 Council of Europe (CoE) countries, to be incompatible with EU law. I will not go into detail on this complex opinion, but I would like to press for action.
Negotiations should continue with the CoE, so that a satisfactory solution can be found, even if this will not be easy given strenuous relations the EU currently has with some CoE members, such as Russia.
Accession to the ECHR is after all not merely an option, but a legal obligation: the EU 'shall accede' to the convention, says the treaty.
Furthermore, failure to accede would weaken the protection of human rights in Europe.
If it were to finally succeed, it would mean granting citizens protection from EU actions, similar to that which they already enjoy against action by all member states.
Overall, the ECHR, as supplemented by its protocols and interpreted by the ECtHR, provides the most comprehensive and efficient human rights protection system across the continent.
Although initially the Strasbourg court was meant as a safeguard against totalitarian regimes, it subsequently evolved into a jurisdiction setting up a pan-European grounding for rights.
At times, the ECtHR's work has been criticised for encroaching on the authority of national courts, and the whole issue of the ECHR has recently been politicised, for instance in the UK.
But the reality is that the ECtHR interprets the convention by drawing on legal principles accepted by all state parties and strives to respect the legal, cultural and political particularities of each one.
Supporting the work of the Strasbourg court, as well as devising intelligent and workable solutions for cooperation with the court in Luxembourg, should therefore be our priority.
In spite of recent setbacks in EU accession to the ECHR, creating a single, comprehensive and coherent legal framework for protecting human rights across the continent still remains a valid objective, one that it is worth fighting for at EU level.