The European Union warmly welcomes the recent announcements by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo commuting all death sentences into life imprisonment and certifying as urgent the bill on the abolition of the death penalty. The EU is a strong advocate of the abolition of the death penalty, as it is of the opinion that capital punishment is incompatible with human dignity and no effective deterrent to crime. The EU emphasizes that the abolition of the death penalty does not mean impunity.