On Wednesday 11 February, the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe announced the waiving of the immunity of Norwegian Thorbjørn Jagland, who was Secretary General of the organisation between 2009 and 2019.
This decision follows a request made on 8 February by the Norwegian authorities as part of an investigation into allegations of aggravated corruption linking the former Secretary General to the American sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.
Thorbjørn Jagland appears on several occasions in the documents published by the US authorities in the Epstein affair.
The Council of Europe, for its part, launched an informal internal administrative inquiry in November 2025, announced Alain Berset, the current Secretary General.
Triggered by initial press reports and conducted in December 2025-January 2026, the investigation revealed that Jeffrey Epstein attended events at the Secretary General’s official residence in Strasbourg on at least two occasions, without any indication that this involved the Council of Europe and without any record of these private meetings in Mr Jagland’s official diary.
It also appears that he stayed on three occasions in private premises belonging to Jeffrey Epstein, but it does not appear that he did so in an official capacity.
Alain Berset also announced that the Council of Europe’s Directorate of Internal Oversight had been asked to examine whether there had been any failures or omissions within the organisation in relation to the events in question.
“Without waiting for the decision of the Director of Internal Oversight or the results of any investigation or audit, I will launch in parallel a thorough review of our institutional governance practices”, he adds.
In addition, the Council of Europe states that it has had no contact with Thorbjørn Jagland since the affair began and, referring to statements made by the latter’s lawyer in the press, awaits a full statement from Thorbjørn Jagland on his links with Jeffrey Epstein.
“We welcome any clarification on the matter”, it adds. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)