 In 2002 the EU Commission asked a legal opinion on compatibility of the decrees with the EU treaties.In the opinion it was argued that, were the Beneš decrees enacted today, they would breach EU treaties, but since they were enacted in 1945 their status would have been unaffected.The opinion quotes a sentence on this subject by the European Court of Human Rights in order to explain that, even if the EU, as the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, recognises the right to ownership as a fundamental right, the treaties cannot have a retroactive effect