Self-discovery journey for the Council of Europe?

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The guest list is heavy: Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), French President Emmanuel Macron, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, as well as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and many others want to see human rights and more support in Reykjavik, Iceland speak for Ukraine.

The first summit in almost 20 years should be the starting point for a reorientation of the Council of Europe, it was said beforehand. A Council of Europe 2.0 seems urgently needed because the organization has an image problem. Hardly anyone knows about the institution, which has nothing to do with the EU.

The Council of Europe was founded in 1949 as one of the first political organizations in Europe. It includes 46 countries, including all 27 EU Member States, as well as Great Britain, Turkey, Ukraine and Azerbaijan. Its core concerns are the promotion of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

In the end, however, the organization was in a shaky place. Russia was excluded last year because of the war of aggression against Ukraine.

The summit is now also meant to signal unity, as there are other shaky candidates whose steadfastness against the Council of Europe is not certain – mainly due to the rulings of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). This belongs to the Council of Europe. For example, it can impose fines on Member States if they do not respect the human rights treaty.

Relations with the member state Turkey have therefore become increasingly conflicted in recent years. The government led by Recep Tayyip Erdogan has significantly expanded its influence over the judiciary in recent years and jailed many of its critics. She often criticized ECtHR rulings as foreign and unlawful interference.

The Strasbourg institution has launched infringement proceedings against Turkey for non-execution of judgments and related human rights violations. But Erdogan could be history by the end of the month. His challenger in the second round of the presidential election on May 28, Kemal Kilicdaroglu of the social-democratic party CHP, promises change. He wants to make the judiciary in the country independent again. That also means sticking to the rulings of the ECtHR, he said before the elections. But it seems more likely that after 20 years Erdogan will not happen overnight.

Great Britain also has difficulty with the judgments of the ECtHR. The anger of the Conservative British government was fueled by the fact that in 2022 the European Court of Human Rights banned a deportation flight of illegally arrived migrants at the last minute. Now Brexit hardliners, especially in the Tory party, are demanding from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that the democratically elected British government and not ‘unelected European judges’ be allowed to make the final decision. Such a passage is planned in the controversial asylum law that is currently going through parliament.

The right-wing Tory wing has repeatedly demanded that Britain simply withdraw from the human rights convention if Strasbourg does not agree to compromise. However, a British Bill of Rights, which would give the Supreme Court in London the final say on human rights issues and ensure that ECtHR orders would no longer be binding in Britain, has been shelved for now. Attorney General Dominic Raab was forced to resign over allegations of bullying.

Under these circumstances, one of the topics at the two-day summit will be the independence of the judiciary and a renewed commitment of member states to the human rights treaty. But the focus is also on better support for Ukraine. The main point will be the planned damage register. This is intended to record the war damage in Ukraine so that Russia can be held accountable.

(SDA)

Source: Blick