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Article 6(2) TEU provides that the EU shall accede to the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the EU accession project has been significantly delayed by Opinion 2/13 of the ECJ. At the same time, there appears to be some harmony in the case law of the two European Courts, which could lead to the status quo being considered as a valid alternative to EU accession. It might therefore be tempting to remove Article 6(2) altogether from the TEU at the next revision of the Treaties. This paper argues that Article 6(2) should stay in the TEU, because a closer look reveals that the current status quo is not satisfactory: it does not allow an adequate representation of the EU in the procedure before the European Court of Human Rights, nor is it capable of ensuring in the long-term comprehensive and stable consistency between EU law and the Convention. Moreover, removing Article 6(2) TEU would undermine the very idea of a collective understanding and enforcement of fundamental rights. This could initiate a process leading to the current European architecture of fundamental rights protection being unravelled altogether. Hence, there is no return from Article 6(2) TEU. Neither is there from actually implementing it.
Legal acts performed by EU Member States applying Union law come within the scope of the Convention and can give rise to adjudication by the ECtHR. A long series of judgments illus-trate the ECtHR’s approach regarding the application of Union law by the courts of EU Mem-ber States. The Convention and Union law are not two autonomous systems separated by a watertight fence. Both European Courts should therefore adopt a wholistic approach in this area, because only a wholistic view takes full account of the legal reality which is one of inter-action and intertwining. The ECtHR makes abundant use of EU law sources, thereby always explicitly referring to them. Three different categories of cases can be identified in how the CJEU goes about the Convention in its case-law.