In response to the open letter published on 22 May by nine Member States - both of the Council of Europe and of the EU - criticising the European Court of Human Rights for case law that curbs their prerogatives in the area of migration policy (see EUROPE 13648/20), the Swiss Alain Berset, Secretary General of the Strasbourg-based organisation, organised, on Wednesday 10 December, an Informal Ministerial Conference to bring the debate back within the walls of the organisation and recentre it within a dialogue between its 46 member States.
From nine in the spring (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Italy, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland), there are now more than 20 hardliners, led by the United Kingdom and Denmark.
On the eve of the conference, on Tuesday 9 December, the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, and his Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen, co-wrote an opinion piece in The Guardian newspaper calling for the European Convention on Human Rights to be reformed to adapt to a Europe that is “falling into disrepair” by “not doing enough” to combat immigration.
“A text from another era”, say the two Labour heads of government, both of whom have taken a hard line on their country’s migration policy.
Although not open to the press at the request of the member states, the meeting nevertheless produced joint conclusions reaffirming the support of all 46 governments for the Convention - “the cornerstone of the protection of human rights in Europe” - but calling for work to be launched to finalise a political declaration and recommendation that take into account “the fundamental responsibility of governments to ensure national security, public safety and the economic well-being of the country, as well as their sovereign right to protect their borders”.
The political declaration is due to be formalised in mid-May, in Chişinău (Moldova), at the annual conference of Council of Europe foreign ministers.
“This is the start of a process launched within the Council of Europe on the basis of consensus”, said Alain Berset, who hopes to bring the hardliners into a broader dialogue.
“The discussion on migration is legitimate”, assured the Secretary General, stressing that “the Convention is a living instrument”, capable of “responding to the challenges of the day”, “including the most complex ones”.
Michael O'Flaherty, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, had more reservations about the approach, stressing the universality of human rights and the importance of tackling the manipulation of political messages and disinformation.
He said he was “concerned about the inaccuracies and assumptions currently in circulation, particularly the claim that the entry into our countries of instrumentalised migrants undermines national security” - which he found “unconvincing”.
“Instrumentalisation is a deplorable fact”, he added, “but our States are well able to receive and consider the asylum claims of the victims of the practice”.
This point of view is far removed from that of the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, who recently threatened to denounce the European Convention on Human Rights in the event of an unfavourable ruling by the Court on the return of migrants sent by Belarus in 2021.
The judgment is expected in early 2026.
Link to the Conference conclusions: https://aeur.eu/f/jxo (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)