Zurich
Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset on Wednesday called for greater European unity in a time of war and rupture, and for a strong legal and democratic framework on which lasting European security can be built.
Speaking at the University of Zurich, 80 years after Winston Churchill’s landmark speech, the Secretary General reflected on Churchill’s vision for Europe and the Council of Europe’s role in responding to today’s growing geopolitical challenges.
Strengthening democratic security
“Europe’s defense spending is rising steeply, while trust in democratic institutions is falling,” the Secretary General pointed out. He said rearmament was necessary because Russia is more aggressive and the United States is less present. However, he warned of the risks if an extremist government were to control a heavily armed state on the European continent. “The weapons we are building today will outlast the governments that ordered them.”
“Europe rarely argues about whether to hold force, but it argues about who controls it and by what authority. At the Council of Europe, we call this democratic security,” he stressed.
Democratic security means having institutions people can trust and democracies that can withstand pressure: independent courts, transparent elections, free media, and the capacity to confront cyberattacks, terrorism, and foreign interference.
Europe’s common legal space
The Secretary General praised the “shared legal DNA” across the 46 Council of Europe member states, which have converged on the same rules under the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. “What brings Europe together is more than geography. It is democracy, human rights and the rule of law,” he said.
“This common legal space was built for the reconciliations that look impossible tonight. We are ready for Ukraine,” Berset added.
“The Council of Europe is building accountability where none existed before,” he said, highlighting the Register of Damage for Ukraine, the International Claims Commission, and the Special Tribunal for the crime of aggression. This work builds on the European Court of Human Rights, which remains “the only international court judging the human-rights violations of Russia’s war against Ukraine”.
From order to rupture
“Eighty years on, Europe is living through another rupture,” the Secretary General said.
Referring to Ukraine, Gaza, Greenland and Iran, he reminded that “every threat or use of force that goes unchallenged writes the rules of what comes next”. “As force is contagious, it works its way back into our democracies and weakens the rule of law from within,” he added.
He also drew attention to external pressure, such as foreign interference in elections, in a context where artificial intelligence moves faster than democratic safeguards.
“This is the deepest break in the European legal order since it was created, and it is happening to a generation that found these institutions already standing,” he said.
In his speech, he pointed to the declaration on migration adopted by consensus at the Committee of Ministers’ session in Chișinău. “It took the concerns of governments seriously, and kept the independence of the Court, while protecting the rights of everyone within the Court’s jurisdiction,” he said.
Referring to the events in Ceuta this July, the Secretary General added: “A continent that cannot talk about migration without dividing is a continent that others can divide. Chișinău is the proof that we can talk about it. Ceuta is the proof that we have to.”
The Council of Europe’s transformation
Four years after his speech in Zurich in 1946, Churchill said of the Council of Europe: “We are not making a machine. We are growing a living plant.”
“Eighty years later, it is still growing. We are transforming the Council of Europe to meet what democratic security demands, including anticipation and early warning,” Berset said.
“Our task is to build what Europe needs: a legal and democratic framework that lasting European security can depend on, and to hold to the same standard everywhere, because the moment standards become negotiable, unity is the first thing to go,” he added.
“Eighty years ago, Churchill’s answer to a broken Europe was to build the Council of Europe. He said ‘Let Europe arise’ and, tonight, his words are the only instructions Europe needs,” the Secretary General concluded.
© Council of Europe — “What brings Europe together is more than geography” – Alain Berset in Zurich