07 July 2005 :

speaking in Helsinki at the conference for Ministers of Justice of the Council of Europe, the European Union Commissioner for Justice, Freedom and Security Franco Frattini relaunched the idea that EU member states should hold a day of protest against the death penalty each year.
“I ask myself,” Frattini’s speech, distributed in Brussels, said, “if we should organize together, every year, a European day against the death penalty: the absolute value of human life, common patrimony of states and citizens of Europe, could form a theme of great importance around which we can build common understanding”.
The idea of creating a European day against the death penalty was first proposed in 2001 when the European parliament called for a universal abolition of capital punishment and for an immediate moratorium to be placed on all pending executions.