extensively consulted and regularly informed and that civil society be integrated in this process; 7. Welcomes the mandate of the thematic EU Special Representative (EUSR) on Human Rights and the planned creation of a Brussels-based Council Working Party on Human Rights (COHOM); looks forward to their close co-operation with Parliament, in the first case also in line with the provisions of Article 36 of the TEU; 8. Expects COHOM to enhance co-operation with the Council Working Party on Fundamental Rights (FREMP) to address the issue of consistency between the EU’s external and internal human rights policy; underlines the importance of having within the European Union coherent, consistent and exemplary policies in line with fundamental values and principles in order to maximise the European Union’s credibility globally and the effectiveness of EU human rights policies and to show genuine respect for the universality of human rights; 9. Welcomes the positive impact on coherence of EU internal and external policies of the EU’s exercise of its legal personality created by the Lisbon Treaty to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with disabilities (UNCRPD) in December 2010; calls for a similar approach to be taken to other international human rights treaties and conventions; calls for the Council and Commission to take a proactive approach in this area in order to address the negative effects of the piecemeal signature and ratification among EU Member States of other important external treaties and conventions; 10. Urges the VP/HR, the EEAS, the Council and the Commission, for the sake of efficiency, to ensure coherence and consistency between the various external financial instruments and existing or planned EU benchmarking, monitoring and evaluation activities and methodologies regarding human rights and democracy situations in third countries, including: the human rights and democracy sections in the enlargement and neighbourhood policy progress reports; the assessment of the ‘more for more’ human rights and democracy principle set out for the European Neighbourhood Policy; the planned inclusion of human rights in impact assessments carried out for legislative and non-legislative proposals and for trade, partnership and association and cooperation agreements, both regional and bilateral; the Commission plan to introduce human rights assessment in the deployment of EU aid modalities (in particular regarding budget support); the strengthened implementation of the monitoring mechanism to scrutinise respect for human rights conventions in the GSP+ countries; the aim of systematising the follow-up use of EU Election Observation Mission reports; and the EU Council’s emphasis on benchmarking as well as on continued and systematic consideration of aspects relating to human rights, gender and children affected by armed conflict in the lessons-learned documents of the CSDP missions; 11. Welcomes the adoption of human rights country strategies for individual countries to implement policies in the most appropriate and effective way; recognises the key role played by the local EU delegations in developing and following up on the country strategies tailored for the specific circumstances, but stresses the coordinating responsibility of the EEAS in ensuring the coherent application of EU human rights policy priorities set out in the human rights strategic framework and in the EU Guidelines; stresses the importance of completing the network of focal points on human rights and democracy in EU Delegations and CSDP missions and operations; urges the VP/HR and