Check against delivery – Speech by Alain Berset, Secretary General of the Council of Europe
Deputy Prime Minister Borg, Dear Ian,
President Rousopoulos,
Dear students,
[Opening]
When I look around this hall, I see history.
This university’s roots reach back to the sixteenth century.
It has stood through the rise and fall of empires.
It has endured siege and bombardment.
And it has seen Malta take its place in the family of the Council of Europe sixty years ago.
That is perspective.
And perspective is what I want to speak about today.
[I. AN OLD PROMISE]
Let’s try something.
Let us compress Europe’s political history into a single day.
In the morning, people meet around fires, in temples, in forums.
The first politics. The first Europe.
By noon, law begins to take hold.
A king signs Magna Carta — law above the crown.
Gutenberg builds a press.
The Enlightenment spreads.
The Bastille falls.
Power must answer to principle.
But as evening comes, the shadows return.
Verdun. The Somme.
A generation lost in the trenches.
Cities burn — Guernica, Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry.
The Holocaust.
Millions deported and murdered — systematically.
At Buchenwald, survivors wrote two words on broken signs: Nie wieder. Never again.
[II. A NEW WIND OVER EUROPE]
That moral promise gave birth to the Council of Europe.
The European Convention on Human Rights.
The European Court of Human Rights.
The European Social Charter.
Then another wall went up.
An iron curtain cut Europe in two.
And one day, it fell.
From the Baltic to the Western Balkans, people saw it as a signal for freedom.
A new wind rose over Kyiv, Tbilisi, Yerevan.
And Europe began to mean something more.
Not just a market, but a community of values.
Not just shared borders, but a shared responsibility.
That is the Europe Malta joined sixty years ago.
But history does not move in straight lines.
The European project is never finished.
It is up to each new generation to make it stronger.
I saw this in conversations with students like you — from Astana to Chisinau.
Let me give you three recent examples.
[III. Yerevan State University]
At Yerevan State University, I met young people who came of age during the Velvet Revolution.
It was in June, just weeks before Armenia and Azerbaijan announced in Washington that they had agreed on a draft peace treaty.
For three decades, conflict has defined their lives.
Suddenly, peace is possible.
Fragile, but possible.
Just last week in Strasbourg, Prime Minister Pashinyan said something that stayed with me.
He said that democracy in Armenia is no longer a coincidence, it is a strategy.
And that peace is like a newborn, who needs daily care.
He is right.
In this new world order, we are all newborns.
And we all need to learn and adapt to new realities.
[IV. Columbia University]
Then at Columbia University in New York, I saw Europe through the eyes of American students.
It was United Nations General Assembly week.
They look at us in Europe and ask:
Is your democracy stronger or just as vulnerable as ours?
My answer?
This is the age of democratic security.
Not the old era of “hard” and “soft” security.
But a new age where no army can keep us safe if we do not have strong institutions, equal laws, and public trust.
And where Europe will be judged not just by the power of its weapons, but by the strength of its democracy.
[V. Copenhagen University]
Which brings me to Copenhagen University.
It was just last week, during the European Political Community meeting.
Ukraine was on everyone’s mind.
I told the students that we at the Council of Europe are building accountability.
Through a Register of Damage, a future Claims Commission, and a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression.
But the discussion also turned to the European Court of Human Rights.
In May, Denmark and Italy led a group of nine countries that challenged the Court’s judgments on migration.
I told them debate is healthy, but politicising the Court is not.
These are not easy debates.
But democratic security means facing them directly — never avoiding them.
[VI. WHEN DEMOCRACY DOESN’T DELIVER]
So where do we go from here?
Across Europe, young people are not waiting on the sidelines.
You are creating citizens’ assemblies, youth councils, participatory budgeting.
And you are leading movements for climate justice and human rights.
Yet the data from my Annual Report on the State of Democracy tells another story.
In too many countries, fewer than half of young people vote.
Youth unemployment remains too high.
In rural areas, one in three young people lacks reliable internet access.
And for young women, the obstacles are even greater.
Only one in four imagines running for office — and digital violence silences far too many before they even begin.
So it is only natural that many young people have lost faith in democracy.
Some even say they would prefer a strong leader who does not have to bother with parliaments and elections.
[VII. A NEW DEMOCRATIC Pact FOR EUROPE]
That is the paradox we face.
Young people are shaping 21st-century Europe in the streets, in universities, and online.
But our institutions have not caught up.
They are stuck in the last century.
Made for another age.
Not for disinformation.
Not for foreign interference.
Not for the age of democratic security.
In Reykjavík, our Heads of State and Government asked us to change that.
They asked for more transparency.
Genuine dialogue.
A youth perspective in every decision.
That is the spirit of the New Democratic Pact for Europe — the work we have started together.
Not to reinvent democracy.
But to renew it.
To rebuild trust.
To show that democracy delivers, especially for your generation.
[CLOSing]
This university has stood for centuries.
It has seen Malta endure — and Europe transform.
And sixty years after Malta joined the Council of Europe, we know.
The task of democracy is never finished.
Europe is more than lines on a map.
It is the values we share — human rights, democracy, the rule of law.
And if Europe is to matter in this new world order, it must stand where those values are tested.
That task falls on all of us.
To carry it forward.
Because Europe is more than a market.
More than just shared borders.
Europe is our shared responsibility.
Thank you.