At the end of a particularly busy plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (CoE), its president, Tiny Kox, reaffirmed on Friday 14 October that “there is no confrontation” between the Strasbourg-based organisation and the new European Political Community (EPC) launched in Prague on 6 and 7 October.
The Council of Europe’s specificity is the defence of fundamental rights, he said, and these are not part of the EPC’s scope of action.
Repeated since last week by the leaders of Europe’s oldest and largest pan-European institution, this message did not prevent a sense of urgency from pervading the session, where the theme was omnipresent.
“The holding of the first meeting of the EPC caught us a bit off guard”, confided a diplomat from the Committee of Ministers, referring to the organisation of a fourth summit of heads of state and government of the Council of Europe. A meeting at the highest level, the principle of which - still floating at the conference of Council of Europe member states’ foreign ministers in Turin last June - now seems to have been agreed for next May in Reykjavik.
As a reminder, the Council of Europe has held three summits to date.
The first was held in Vienna in 1993 following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the emergence of new democracies in Central and Eastern Europe. The second, held in Strasbourg in 1997, saw the creation of the post of Commissioner for Human Rights. The third, held in Warsaw in 2005, concluded with a declaration and an action plan to safeguard and promote human rights, democracy and the rule of law - a key mission of a Council of Europe, which was created in 1949 to maintain peace and multilateralism on the continent.
The annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, a member of the Council of Europe, and its armed aggression last February against Ukraine, also a member of the organisation, had marked the failure of this objective and raised the question of a fourth summit.
The escalation of the conflict, the questioning of the founding values of the Council of Europe within some of its member states and the launch of the EPC have now made this summit of the heads of state and government of the 46 member states indispensable.
“If not now, when?”, asked the Irish Secretary of State for European Affairs Thomas Byrne, who addressed the Assembly on behalf of the current Irish Presidency of the Council of Europe.
The Secretary General, Marija Pejčinović Burić, assured the parliamentarians that “the reflection is well advanced”, during an exchange with them the day before.
Asked what the objectives of the Summit might be, she said that “elements could be taken from the conclusions proposed by the high-level think tank on the future of the Council of Europe” set up at the Turin meeting.
Referring to this, she “hopes” for EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights, on which “negotiations are progressing”.
“If they are successful”, she added, it would give “a coherent architecture to human rights in Europe”. This was also emphasised by the Irish President, Michael D. Higgins, in a speech to the Assembly, also on 11 October.
Another avenue mentioned in the report and taken up by the General Secretary is “the strengthening of the relationship between the CoE and the EU in the light of the immense geopolitical changes brought about by the Russian aggression against Ukraine and Russia’s exclusion from the CoE in March 2022”.
“In the face of multiple challenges, we need to review our strategic relationship with the EU”, the Secretary General said, calling for “ greater engagement”.
For its part, the Parliamentary Assembly has convened an ad hoc committee to consider the strengthening of the Council of Europe. Fiona O’Loughlin from Ireland is in charge of drafting the report and will present her findings in January.
The holding of this fourth summit has been agreed in principle, but it still needs to be formalised by the Committee of Ministers and the dates defined, which will not be easy.
“It is not about having a calendar clash with the next EPC meeting scheduled at the same time in Moldova”, said Marija Pejčinović Burić.
She is already calling for “close coordination to avoid duplication” with both the EPC and the EU, and welcomes the “message of unity” sent by the Prague meeting in the face of “the horrible Russian aggression against Ukraine”, but highlights that the Council of Europe remains the guardian of democracy, the rule of law and human rights.
These are values for which she would like to see the leaders of the 46 Council of Europe member states “reiterate” their commitment at the forthcoming summit, even though there has been “a decline in democracy and the rule of law in some of these same member states”.
The worst thing for the Council of Europe would be a lack of unity and successful results in Reykjavik. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)