Check against delivery
Speech by Alain Berset, Secretary General of the Council of Europe
Acknowledgments
Good morning, everyone.
It is a pleasure to join so many members and experts from Eurocorps, the European Union, NATO, academia, and civil society here at the European Parliament for this seminar.
I want to thank Ms Fabienne Keller and Lieutenant General Aroldo Lázaro Sáenz for the invitation.
It is an important moment to bring the Council of Europe into this conversation.
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine is approaching its fifth year.
And from disinformation to cyberthreats, Europe’s security landscape is changing fast.
We must rethink what keeps us safe — and what keeps us together.
INTRODUCTION
Allow me to start with the words of a fellow Swiss from a different century.
Someone who saw the consequences of war up close.
He wrote a book that changed how we see conflict ever since.
In it, he said:
Guerre ou paix. Choisissez.
L’avenir est entre les mains de tous.
War or peace. Choose.
The future is in everyone’s hands.
I. Human security
Henry Dunant wrote those lines after walking onto the battlefield of Solferino.
He saw thousands of wounded French, Austrian, and Italian soldiers abandoned without care or dignity.
His ideas gave birth to the Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions.
And with it, to the principle that even war must have rules.
Dunant received the first Nobel Peace Prize for it.
He was a pioneer of what we now call human security — the topic of today’s seminar.
Human security challenges a narrow view of national security.
It asks us to judge our safety, not just by the strength of our defences, but also by the safety of those our defences are meant to protect.
Ii. A NEW PARADIGM
That brings me to the key message of my intervention today: democratic security.
And more to the point, the interplay between democratic security and the militarisation that is accelerating across Europe.
Democratic security is another paradigm for understanding today’s security architecture.
It asks us to judge our security, not just by how powerful our militaries are, but by how resilient our democracies will be.
And like human security, it challenges the old divide between “hard” and “soft” security.
Human security and democratic security are not opposites.
They are two sides of the same question: how do we keep Europe safe without losing what makes it worth defending?
IiI. A CONTINENT REARMED
This question has returned with force as Europe is rearming.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, most European states cut defence budgets.
They relied on stability, diplomacy, and the strategic umbrella of the United States.
But the war in Ukraine — combined with growing doubts about America’s long-term commitment — has changed all this.
As a result, defence spending is surging across the continent.
The European Commission’s 800 billion euro ReArm Europe plan speaks for itself.
IV. A NEW ERA OF Militarisation
I want to be very clear: rearmament is necessary.
What Eurocorps, NATO, and all the militaries of our member States do is paramount.
The threats are real, and they must be addressed without delay.
But so must the investments in democratic security.
Because if we fail to address democratic backsliding, the risk is larger armies but weaker democracies.
And history shows that military power only protects a democracy if democracy remains strong enough to control it.
Five years, ten years from now.
An extremist group could come to power in a heavily armed European state.
What then?
How would they use those weapons?
Against whom?
V. EMERGING THREATS
We must be ready for this.
Just as we must be prepared to confront cyberattacks, terrorism, climate change, and foreign information manipulation and interference.
We need to understand security in a more comprehensive way.
Not just as military power.
But as strong institutions, and solid political and democratic processes.
VI. LESSONS FROM UKRAINE
Nowhere is this more evident than in Ukraine.
Where the Council of Europe has launched the most ambitious Action Plan in its history.
As this year marks 30 years of Ukraine’s membership.
A plan to help prepare elections that are free, fair, and transparent.
To support reforms that fight corruption, strengthen the judiciary, and make institutions resilient.
It is slow work, essential work — the democratic foundations of reconstruction.
This is the essence of our recent project for veterans and Armed Forces personnel.
To ensure that those who serve understand human-rights obligations in wartime.
And to strengthen the protection of soldiers, veterans, and their families now and in the reconstruction ahead.
Our work also extends to accountability.
We have created the Register of Damage for Ukraine and are preparing an International Claims Commission.
Next step for the Commission – The Hague, 16 December.
We are also advancing work toward a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression.
And the European Court of Human Rights remains the only international court hearing human-rights cases linked to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
VII. WHEN WAR MEETS THE RULE OF LAW
For years, the Court has shown that military questions are human-security questions.
Last July, it made history in an interstate case against Russia, finding a pattern of indiscriminate military attacks that goes to the heart of today’s seminar.
The judgment set out the human cost with surgical precision — from the shelling of civilians, to the unlawful transfer of Ukrainian children, to the downing of Flight MH17.
These acts reflected a flagrant disregard for the international legal order built after the Second World War.
Rights, accountability, and public trust are the conditions of lasting security.
If Europe is to remain secure, the protection of people must be the compass guiding every one of our security choices.
VIII. TOWARD A NEW DEMOCRATIC PACT
Earlier, I asked you how we keep Europe safe without losing what makes it worth defending.
This is one of the defining challenges of our generation.
If we do it wrong, we rearm a continent without securing its future.
But if we get it right, we secure both our safety and our values.
This is why the Council of Europe has launched a collective effort to shape a New Democratic Pact for Europe.
Consultations are underway, with work already advancing on new European standards to counter disinformation and foreign interference.
Europe’s rearmament must be matched by democratic strength.
And I believe Eurocorps and the Council of Europe can move this work forward together.
CONCLUSION
Allow me to end where I began.
With the words of Henry Dunant.
War or peace. Choose.
The future is in everyone’s hands.
From Solferino to Pokrovsk, the lesson is the same.
Security built on fear will not last.
But security built on rights, on trust, on strong democratic institutions — that will endure.
The task is not to slow rearmament.
It is to ensure that the power we build to defend democracy is never used to weaken it.
Security and democracy rise together.
And I am confident that if we choose them together, Europe’s future will remain in good hands.
Thank you for your attention.