Brussels, 23/11/2020 (Agence Europe) – The spokesperson for the European External Action Service expressed the EU’s deep concern on Saturday 21 November about the latest federal death row executions in the United States on 19 November, “the first-ever carried out during a presidential transition”. “Since the decision to resume the death penalty at the federal level in July (...), eight death row inmates have been executed and six more are scheduled for execution in December and January”, denounced the spokesperson (see EUROPE 12525/32), while urging the US administration to reverse its decision and to halt all federal executions. In his view, the high number of executions at the federal level is in contradiction with the sharp decline in the use of the death penalty in the individual states of the United States and global trends. President-elect Joe Biden, who is opposed to the death penalty, is expected to review executions at the federal level. (CG)