The Council of Europe

Structure, History and Issues in European Politics

Martyn Bond

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781136588051
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The book provides a succinct and much needed introduction to the Council of Europe from its foundation through the early conventions on human rights and culture to its expansion into the fields of social affairs, environment and education.

Founded in 1949 within a month of NATO, the Council of Europe was the hub of political debate about integrating Europe after the Second World War. After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, it was thrust into the limelight again as the test bed where all newly liberated European states had to prove their democratic credentials. Now it is the political arena in which the closely integrating states of the European Union face the twenty European states still outside the EU. Its European Court of Human Rights hands down judgments which all member states must respect, and its monitoring activities report on conditions concerning democracy, human rights and the rule of law across the whole continent. The Council of Europe has negotiated international agreements against the death penalty, torture, corruption, cybercrime and terrorism. It works for political pluralism, media freedom and fair elections. The treatment for minorities, efficient local government and strengthening non-government organisations are part of its daily agenda. Today the states of Greater Europe come together to discuss their present and their future in the Council of Europe

Providing a wealth of factual information and describing and analysing the key debates within the organization, this work will be of great interest to students and scholars of international organizations, European politics and international relations.

1 The Council of Europe in the bigger European picture

• The political architecture of Europe

• Membership of the Council of Europe

• The four pillars of the Council of Europe

• The Committee of Ministers: the voice of governments

• The Parliamentary Assembly: indirect democracy

• The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities in Europe: grassroots democracy

• The Conference of International NGOs: civil society

• Balance and legitimacy?

The Council of Europe (CoE) is an international organization operating in the field of soft security. It builds closer relations between its member states by negotiating conventions that develop common standards of political and social behavior, and by encouraging its members to accept regimes of mutual monitoring to ensure these standards are respected.

This role has grown considerably over the 60 years of the CoE’s existence, partly as membership of the organization has increased— especially following the end of the Cold War—and partly as the success of this activity has encouraged the member states to apply it in more areas of policy.

The CoE’s activities have always been shaped by the political tensions of international relations in Europe. To understand its contribution to political stability over preceding decades and its current role in attempting to maintain civilized standards of behavior both between and within states, the Council needs to be seen in the broader context of other international structures in Europe.

The political architecture of Europe

The political and security architecture of Europe today is dominated by four international organizations: the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the CoE, the European Union (EU), and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). NATO and the CoE both have their origins in the late 1940s, while the EU grew from the European Coal and Steel Community of 1951, and the OSCE grew out of the Helsinki Process, a United Nations (UN)-sponsored initiative of the 1970s to encourage detente.¹

Among these international organizations the OSCE has the largest membership. Set up formally in 1995, following the signing of the Charter of Paris for a New Europe in November 1990, the OSCE now counts 56 members. They include virtually all European states as well as five from Central Asia and two from North America. It is the largest regional security organization in the world. Significantly, both Russia and the United States are full members. Its activities are directed at five geographic areas: South-East Europe, Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus, Central Asia, and Western Europe coupled with North America. The OSCE’s concerns comprise politico-military as well as economic-environmental topics and a “human dimension” covering soft security issues such as anti-trafficking, education, elections, gender equality, media freedom, minority rights, tolerance, non-discrimination, and the promotion of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. The recent Russian proposal for the new Euro-Atlantic security treaty covering the area from Vancouver to Vladivostok is currently discussed in the context of the OSCE.

NATO was the central alliance for the military defense of Western Europe during the Cold War and continues to exercise that major role in western defense today. Initially it was set up with nine West European members plus the United States and Canada. Its membership then grew during the Cold War to include Turkey, Greece, and the Federal Republic of Germany. More recently its membership has increased again to admit former communist states from Central and Eastern Europe, and now stands at 28. Nine of these states were, until the fall of the Berlin Wall, either satellite states or provinces of the Soviet Union, and three others emerged from the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Under changed circumstances, its remit has widened to areas well outside the traditional European theatre, as demonstrated by its current involvement in Afghanistan. In the interests of mutual stability, NATO has established closer relations with the former enemy superpower, Russia, concentrating specifically on information exchange and consultation. These are organized within the NATO-Russia Council, established in 2007.

The EU currently has 27 members. It is negotiating to admit Croatia, Iceland, and Turkey, though the potential membership of the last of these is a controversial issue among member states. States in the Western Balkans—Montenegro, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), Albania, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo—may well negotiate membership at a later stage. The EU’s core activities concern economic and monetary integration, with a long-term goal of political integration. Increasingly it is concerned with security and defense issues and matters relating to interior affairs (including immigration) and justice. It has recently established an extensive External Action Service with embassies in over 125 states. Over time its relations with the CoE have grown closer, with the EU funding numerous CoE activities in member states which are not also members of the EU. Member states of the EU now form a majority within the Council of Europe (27 out of 47) and, following entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the EU is currently negotiating accession to the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.²

The CoE has a distinct but limited role within this cluster of international organizations. It does not deal with hard security issues of defense, as does NATO. Nor does it have an economic agenda for integration, as does the EU. Most of the conventions that its member states have agreed relate to administrative and legal matters whose economic impact is at best slight, and often indirect. In the words of former Secretary General Terry Davis, “The EU is concerned with the standard of living, while the Council of Europe is concerned with the quality of life.” It defines its core activities as promoting and protecting democracy, human rights, and the rule of law.

The CoE operates on an intergovernmental basis, spreading mutual respect for standards of democratic political behavior among its member states. It maintains relations with other international organizations operating in its geographical region, especially the EU and the OSCE, or subscribing in a wider context to comparable values, such as the UN. It is concerned to project its values essentially to its own member states and to like-minded countries, some of which have observer status at the CoE.³

Established within a month of NATO in 1949, the CoE has concentrated its work on “soft security,” standard setting over a range of concerns which underpin the values of western society. It does this by negotiating conventions which establish shared law and practice among

Box 1.1 European political architecture in brief

• NATO: founded 1949, military defense concerns. Now 28 members, led by the United States, including Turkey, excluding Russia.

• Council of Europe: founded 1949, soft security concerns. Now 47 members, including Russia and Turkey, with the United States as observer.

• European Union: founded 1951 as Coal and Steel Community with aim of political union through economic integration. Now 27 member states, Turkey currently negotiating accession, excludes both Russia and the United States.

• OSCE: founded 1995 (following Treaty of Paris 1990) as regional security organization “from Vancouver to Vladivostok.” Now 56 members including North American, European, and Central Asian states.

its member states. Some of these conventions relate to core issues such as human rights, including the prohibition of torture, the protection of the rule of law and the fight against corruption. Others relate to closely defined and often technical matters, including such apparently arcane matters as the repatriation of corpses and the responsibilities of hoteliers.

Membership of the CoE was restricted de facto to West European states until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Now it includes 47 member states covering the whole of geographic Europe including Turkey and the states of the Caucasus with the exception of Belarus (excluded since 1977 for its failure to respect human rights) and Kosovo (whose international status is not yet clarified).

Neither the United States nor Russia is a member of the EU. Both are members of the OSCE. The United States is a member of NATO, but Russia is not. Russia is a full member of the CoE, but the United States is not; it enjoys only observer status.

The first and fundamental convention agreed by all members of the CoE was the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) ensures observance of the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (the full title of the ECHR). It offers states a legal forum to bring cases against other member states for failure to meet their human rights commitments. It also offers citizens a right of direct appeal against their national authorities in case of grievances concerning their human rights.

In addition to the judicial interpretation of the ECHR by the ECtHR, in more recent years the CoE has developed other mechanisms to monitor the behavior of member states to ensure they live up to the commitments they have undertaken. Chief among these are the Commissioner for Human Rights and the monitoring mechanisms built into various conventions such as the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, and the European Social Charter.⁴

Membership of the Council of Europe

From its foundation by 10 member states in May 1949, the CoE’s membership increased quickly in its early years. Within 20 years it had nearly doubled, to 18 member states. With its declared aim of protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, the Council welcomed new member states from Western Europe that had initially been debarred by reason of their wartime role as belligerents or neutrals, states emerging from dictatorship, or states which had newly become independent—such as Cyprus and Malta.⁵

Consolidating its membership among West European states, the CoE was seen by communist Eastern Europe as the civilian arm of NATO. This reflected the increasingly rigid opposition of political and ideological blocs across the divided continent. States in the West differentiated themselves from the East by stressing first generation human rights in the civil and political field, such as personal liberty and freedom of expression, as enshrined in the ECHR and subsequent protocols added to it over the years. Communist states rated more highly second generation social and economic rights, such as the right to work, to pensions, and housing. This distinction reflected the ideological split between capitalist and communist systems in Europe.

Detente in the 1970s started to change not only perceptions but also the underlying realities. The application of the Helsinki Accords, negotiated between East and West in the framework of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, helped to create common ground between the CoE and more progressive and reform minded elements in Central and Eastern Europe. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the CoE was reinvigorated as an attractive western organization that had the capacity to span the whole re-uniting continent. The CoE represented values that the newly emerging democratic governments of Central and Eastern Europe wanted to entrench in their new polities, the sooner the better.

The policy of speedy enlargement was not accepted without argument inside the CoE. Some member states were concerned that, if the CoE imposed few or easy conditions on new members, it would dilute the values for which it stood. They argued instead for strict conditionality and close monitoring of the commitments that new states undertook on joining. But the majority argued that the CoE needed to act quickly to anchor the achievements of the democratic revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe by accepting states as they applied, even if it meant that new member states subsequently needed considerable capacity building in order to comply with their obligations and live up to the CoE’s established standards.

As a result of this speedy entry policy, membership of the CoE rose rapidly in the years after 1989. Within 10 years, membership reached 41, and the CoE’s 50th anniversary was celebrated under the slogan “Towards a greater Europe without dividing lines.” This rapid expansion of liberal democratic values may not have been the ultimate triumph of liberal democracy—the end of history as Francis Fukuyama envisaged it—but it did replace the earlier antagonism that divided the continent with cooperation on the basis of free market economies and fundamental human rights, as envisaged in the ECHR and proclaimed by the CoE. It was certainly a turning point in the political organization of Europe.⁶

Currently the CoE has a membership of 47 states, the entire continent with the exception of Belarus and Kosovo. Within this organization, European states from the Atlantic to the Bering Straits and from the Arctic to the Mediterranean seek together to solve a number of their mutual problems. They accept a degree of inspection and monitoring by their neighbors and peers through mechanisms established and agreed together. Above all, on issues of human rights, they are prepared to submit to the judgments of the ECtHR.

The four pillars of the Council of Europe

The statute of the CoE defines its essential structure. It is an intergovernmental organization, with decision-making power resting with the member states, represented in the Committee of Ministers (CM). Foreign ministers of the member states meet usually once a year, and the ministers’ deputies or ambassadors meet each week in Strasbourg

Box 1.2 Confusing the Council of Europe with the European Union

The European Union (EU) groups together 27 states in an economic and potentially political union, and is located in Brussels. The Council of Europe groups together 47 states in a looser, intergovernmental organization located in Strasbourg and is the subject of this book.

The two organizations share the same flag—12 gold stars on a blue background—and use Schiller’s “Ode to Joy,” as set to music by Beethoven in his 9th Symphony, as their anthem.

• The European Council is an EU institution bringing together the 27 heads of state and government four times a year.

• The European Parliament (EP) is the EU’s parliament. It shared premises in Strasbourg with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for many years. The EP now has a new building in Brussels for its committee meetings as well as another new building adjacent to the Council of Europe’s building in Strasbourg. The EP holds its plenary sessions in Strasbourg 12 times each year, while PACE meets on a quarterly basis.

• The European Court of Justice is the highest court of the EU and is located in Luxembourg. The European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) is the highest court of the Council of Europe and is located in Strasbourg. It interprets the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR). The EU is negotiating to sign the ECHR and, as a result, the remit of the ECtHR will extend to include the institutions of the EU. The EU will then also send a judge to take part in the work of the ECtHR in Strasbourg.

to oversee the activities of the CoE. Occasional meetings of specialist ministers oversee policy and developments in defined areas of ...