Parliamentary Assembly

The Council of Europe occupies a special role for many Swedes – not least, many Swedish politicians. As you pointed out, Mr President, many of the more prominent representatives of different Swedish political parties spent an interesting and fruitful part of their political careers in this Chamber, which has for a long time provided a key link between Swedish and European political life.

The Council of Europe represents the highest principles of western and European political tradition and ideals. Over the years it has symbolised and, in both spirit and fact, proven itself the guarantor of the fundamental principles of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. Speaking here in the citadel of those high principles, it is only natural that I focus on how they relate to the broader issue of European construction.

For forty years, membership in the Council of Europe was restricted to a privileged set of nations. During Europe’s decades of artificial division, the Council of Europe was viewed with scorn and suspicion by the socialist dictatorships behind the iron curtain. The peoples of those countries thought otherwise. Once they were given a choice, they rallied to Strasbourg, and to the ideals that you all represent.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe now plays an important role in monitoring the development in countries that aspire to membership of the Council.

Sweden certainly welcomes the large number of countries that wish to join the Organisation, and hopes that they will meet the requirements for membership as soon as possible. We are particularly pleased that two of our immediate neighbours across the Baltic Sea – Estonia and Lithuania – are likely to be admitted early next year. I hope that our third Baltic neighbour, Latvia, will not be far behind. We are anxious also that the dialogue and co-operation that has been initiated between the Council of Europe and the Russian Federation should allow that huge and always important European country to become a member as soon as the conditions are right.

Estonia and Latvia are unique among European states in a tragic sense which we should all be aware of, now that we are to welcome their Representatives as full members in this Chamber.

Among all European members of the old League of Nations in 1939, the three Baltic states were the only ones which did not regain their sovereignty after the war. The loss of independence meant that they also lost the power to control their futures and their destinies, including power over immigration which, in past decades, has been considered vital by each and every one of the states represented in this Assembly. As Soviet republics and parts of that empire, Estonia and Latvia were subjected to a massive influx of Russian immigrants, in particular in the 1950s and 1960s.

As we all know, there are numerous examples in the tragic history of Europe of one people or state expanding into the traditional territory of its neighbours. But in this century at least there is no case except Estonia and Latvia in which states with internationally recognised sovereignty have been occupied and colonised by immigration to such an extent that the Estonian and Latvian peoples cannot be sure that they will remain a secure majority, or even a majority at all, in their own states.

Now that Estonians and Latvians have finally re-established independence, it is to some extent understandable that they do not want to grant citizenship immediately and automatically to all immigrants having arrived during occupation, especially when those people do not want to abstain from citizenship of their country of origin which is now the Russian Federation. This could be seen in the light of the fact that their coming to these countries was part of a deliberate policy of occupation which had profound implications for the future of those nations.

Still, when we look at the facts, the Estonians have decided on a fairly generous course. The requirements for citizenship laid down so far in Estonia seem quite liberal in a European perspective. To the most important extent, it is easier for a citizen of Russia to become a citizen of Estonia than for a citizen of Russia to become a citizen of Sweden. Latvian law in that respect is still under active consideration and remains to be decided.

As for the situation of those Russian immigrants in Estonia and Latvia who will remain non-citizens – to a certain extent due to their own choice – for some time ahead, there is room for improvement in these countries and in particular with regard to their chances of participating fully and wholly in economic life. On the whole, however, it appears that Russian immigrants are now enjoying better rights than many other immigrant communities in other European states. For instance, they have publicly financed schools in their own language according to the same rules as the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian populations. Further, the Estonian Constitution grants the right to vote in local elections to non-citizens. That issue has been the subject of much controversy in some of the key countries of western Europe.

Seen from the perspective of the Russian immigrants in these countries, they understandably have a different perspective. They never really felt that they were moving abroad when they settled in Estonia or Latvia. They do not consider themselves immigrants at all and in some respects they are right. Most of them have no personal responsibility for the policies of the past Soviet regime, policies which to a certain extent forced them from Russia into the countries which they now regard as their countries – Estonia or Latvia. In many ways, they are victims of the barbarism of the Soviet system. Now, when they have lost the equal status with Estonians and Latvians which they used to enjoy by virtue of their common Soviet citizenship, they are disappointed and they feel insecure. Much statesmanship will be required in future to solve those problems. All that is part of the tragic legacy which expansionist empires usually leave behind when they finally crumble in the way that they always do.

I am confident that our Baltic neighbours will continue to deal with these problems in a way which fully respects the precepts of international law in general and the European Convention on Human Rights in particular. The Council of Europe has played an important role in easing recent tensions in the Baltic republics. The reports by the Political Affairs Committee are examples of a dispassionate analysis which serves to dispel misunderstandings that might otherwise be there. It is useful to remind governments as well as the public in the Baltic states that their human rights policies are closely watched by the international and European communities. It is also useful to reassure Russians of different political persuasions that their complaints are, and will continue to be, listened to by the international and European communities.

I am convinced that the long-overdue withdrawal of former Soviet troops from the Baltics will move our Baltic neighbours to pay increased attention to the needs of the Russians living in their societies. Such a policy would most certainly be politically wise and fair to the Russians as individuals.

My remarks have not dealt with the situation in Lithuania where Russian immigrants make up some 10% at most of the population. That may seem quite a large proportion in the wider European perspective, but it is less than one-third of the relative size of the Russian immigrant communities in Estonia and Latvia.

The rapid crumbling of the totalitarian regimes in central, eastern and south-eastern Europe and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, have laid bare the urgent need for democracy, human rights and the rule of law. It has also demonstrated again and anew the magnetism of these ideals.

Extending and consolidating those rights and ideals in Europe is one of the great political challenges of our times. It is a task where the Council of Europe has an essential contribution to make through the building and supporting of democratic institutions. In so doing, it can play its part in laying down the foundation for the effective order of peace, security and stability that we will all need in the times ahead.

In that regard, I would like to pay tribute to the work of the Parliamentary Assembly in responding to the challenges and opportunities represented by the bridging of the east-west divide, I know that your President, Mr Martinez, together with his predecessor and my colleague in the Swedish Government, Mr Anders Björck, played an active part in the creation of the special guest status. That new concept was a timely initiative which provides parliamentarians of non-member states with valuable contacts and down- to-earth experience of how parliamentary democracy European-style really works.

The fall of communism in Europe and the new community of values heralds an enhanced and more important role for the Council of Europe. Its traditional tasks have been supplemented and elevated to active promotion and support for the building of democratic institutions and consolidating human rights in the reforming countries of Europe. Thanks to its unique competence in these and related areas, the Council of Europe is in this regard, in fact, Europe’s leading “software house” of democracy and the guardian of the rights of the individual.

Without well-functioning democratic institutions and true respect for human rights there will be no peace and stability in Europe. There was a time when it was possible to speak about peace and stability in Europe without mentioning freedom, democracy and human rights. There was even a time when in some countries it was seen as an affront to the cause of peace to speak about freedom. Those days are gone and those days must remain gone. We must always understand that we can never separate the cause of freedom and the course of democracy from the course of peace and the course of stability. There is no peace and there is no stability where there is no democracy and no respect for human rights. Today, that is the European consensus on which we are going to build the everlasting new European peace.

The Council of Europe has, as I have mentioned, a key function in this regard. It was mentioned especially in this respect in the Paris Charter and it was mentioned especially at the CSCE Helsinki Summit, in particular when it concerned the human dimension. That represents an important step forward in developing an organic relationship between the CSCE and the Council of Europe. That is indeed an objective that my country, Sweden, has consistently pursued.

Recently in the Yugoslav crisis there has been the need to dispatch a number of CSCE missions. The expertise of the Council of Europe should and could be included in some of those missions. In addition of course, there are the specific proposals about an international criminal court to deal with the obvious crimes against humanity that we are now seeing there. That proposal, now being considered by the international conference on the former Yugoslavia, might be another area where the Council of Europe, together with the CSCE, could make an important contribution.

Sweden has proposed that the Council of Europe should be asked to implement the CSCE support programme for new CSCE members where appropriate. I note with satisfaction that the Helsinki Summit decisions foresee common ventures with the CSCE in this direction.

The European Convention on Human Rights has rightly been called the jewel in the crown of the Council of Europe. As we look at this unique instrument we can take pride in being parties to the world’s most precise and advanced protection mechanism in the human rights field. The Commission and the Court are composed of Europe’s most prominent experts in this field. We should spare no effort to safeguard and develop this invaluable guardian of human rights.

I am saying this against the very special background that Sweden is seen by everyone as a true democracy and a country truly respecting human rights and freedoms. Even we have been closely guarded by these mechanisms, and even practices, laws and decisions in Sweden have been criticised by these institutions – I welcome that. Even those countries respecting human rights and freedoms need to be guarded when it comes to the details and when it comes to the fact that there should never be a possibility for any state, however democratic, to affront the rights of individuals. The institutions that are set up here in Strasbourg are an essential component of the European Convention on Human Rights that is so essential to the functioning of our society.

Human rights span a broad spectrum of fundamental issues. The collapse of communism has revealed an entirely new set of problems. One of them is the protection of minorities, which has lately surfaced as a pressing issue on the agenda of European politics. During the cold war we saw that security in Europe was dominated by military, strategic and geopolitical issues. Dormant tensions were subdued but certainly did not disappear. In the new Europe we see a resurgence of assertive and sometimes aggressive nationalism at its most horrific extremes. The situation in the former Yugoslavia illustrates the depth and the scope of such conflicts. Europe’s democracies must face up to their responsibilities in helping to create structures that can stem the tide of aggressive nationalism. With its special and unique role in human rights, the Council of Europe should renew its efforts in exploring ways and means of protecting minorities throughout Europe.

I think that it would be possible and necessary to go a step further. Immigrant communities established in the post-war years in many European countries certainly need our attention. In the Paris Charter for a New Europe there is a paragraph on migrant workers and our common concerns to protect and to promote their rights. Do not we all have a duty to keep this commitment in mind? Perhaps the Council of Europe, parallel to its efforts to explore ways of protecting minorities with historical settlement rights in different countries, might also devote some thought to the problems of the more recent immigrants in all our European countries. I have in mind not only migrant workers but individuals of different sorts who have moved to different countries in the past few decades and all of those in the years ahead who, for one reason or another, are likely to seek their future in a country other than the country of their birth. Many of them face problems to which we should be more attentive because they are an essential part of the European political agenda ahead.

In his important address before the Assembly in May of this year, President Mitterrand of France suggested convening heads of state and governments of the Council of Europe. I believe that a high-level meeting of that sort is both a challenge and an opportunity which naturally gives rise to expectations of concrete results. Hopes must not be dashed, and I suggest that some sort of preparatory committee be established at the earliest possible opportunity so that we can pave the way for a successful meeting with specific and concrete results. Such a meeting could also provide an opportunity for the Council of Europe to define its role in Europe’s evolving new architecture of different institutions. In a rapidly changing Europe there are many challenging perspectives and we all have to do some thinking on the future of the different European institutions in the new political landscape that we are confronting.

The centrepiece, the driving force, the engine and the core in the construction of a European peace and security order will obviously be the European Community that is now gradually evolving into an economic and monetary union and which is gradually developing a common foreign and security policy. As that develops it will acquire an ever greater potential for solving, alleviating and handling a lot of the problems and tensions that we shall face in the talks ahead. But however important that body will be, it will not be enough. In the broader economic sense, the EEA Agreement – the Agreement on the European Economic Area – defines an area of far-reaching economic integration between the countries of the European Community, the countries of EFTA and the other countries that will eventually be functioning with market economies in the same way as the present countries of EFTA. To bring the new stable market economies into the EEA would make them part of the European Economic Area.

An essential part of the new Europe is always, obviously, the CSCE, which defines what we might refer to as the European security area. It has a wide mandate to build security and co-operation in a very large number of countries, stretching into areas not traditionally defined as part of Europe.

The criteria for participation are not over-rigorous, but all countries in the CSCE are united in their search for security within the broadly defined European scene. We need a set of efficient and interlocking institutions which support each other in the tasks of the different nations and identities during the process of European reconstruction. The nations would then share and live up to the new challenges of European integration and to true and fundamental European values. But some countries are not yet ready for that, or in a position to join the CSCE.

The Council of Europe has a pan-European vocation in that regard. It is part of the European security order and it should continue to cultivate those areas where it has particular expertise and experience. It defines what might be called the European democratic area. It defines and refines the democratic area of Europe which is essential to the security of our continent.

Let us look at the possibilities ahead for the Council of Europe. Membership is increasing and many candidates are waiting in the wings. It is imperative that the Council goes forward but without lowering its standards and norms because they are the very essence of the Council of Europe’s function in the new Europe which is emerging.

We are experiencing a watershed in the history of our Europe. The old Europe – the Europe of the cold war, of the walls and of the barbed wire – has gone, never to reappear. The new Europe has not yet emerged. We are living through the transition from something which we knew and did not like to something which we have not yet built. There are tensions, question marks and problems, many of which are related to the uncertainties involving the task of building a new European order. That has been obvious in western Europe in the last few weeks, with the turmoils on the European and international financial markets. That has put a question mark on many of the plans and perspectives which have been outlined by political leaders. That issue has preoccupied the minds of politicians in western Europe and it shows the nature of the situation in Europe today. In the past it was possible to hide the social and economic weaknesses behind a barrier of regulation and restriction. That has gone. We all recognise the force of that type of European order. We have opened up our economies and there is a free flow of people, goods, services and capital across borders but we have not yet managed to establish the economic and monetary union that would give us stability in the enormous freedom that we have all decided to have.

A lot of the problems are caused by the transition from one stage to another. The longer the transition takes the more profound will be the problems. Some of the tensions are unavoidable in small local communities where customs have been undisturbed for decades or centuries. The sudden influx of people from different countries and different cultures is bound to cause tensions.

Out of the meeting of cultures, experiences and ideas will emerge something new which is richer and better. However, as we know from headlines across Europe, the risks of that progress developing into destruction and tension are obvious and the danger is in pulling something down that we should build up. New demands face us all as European politicians in defending our values, openness, humanity and respect for each and every individual, whatever country they come from or whatever religion they practise.

We are moving into a Europe in which it will be even more natural to move freely across the boundaries and borders of the past. In central, eastern and south-eastern Europe there is a danger of the forces of a red/brown political nature emerging. Aggressive nationalism is often the last bastion of communist forces who are trying to preserve what remains of their hold on the future. The risks are there if European integration does not move ahead. Only in that way will we be able to fight the forces of western nationalism and prevent Europe from sliding back into the problems, tensions and perhaps even the conflicts of the past.

I have always been a committed European and have become more so in the last few years. I am committed to the idea that many of the problems that we face can be solved only by increased co-operation between all of us. That has been demonstrated even more clearly in the past few years. We must work together. If we do not there is a risk of the problems of the past coming back to haunt us.

In the process of building new structures for the new Europe, the Council of Europe is of essential importance. The Council of Europe is and should be focusing on the practical issues, but it must also always remember that it is the very nucleus of European integration. This institution was set up after the war, inspired by statesmen such as Winston Churchill. It is the predecessor to everything that has happened since in western Europe. The Council is defining and refining the ideal of European democracy and it now has a chance to extend its democracy and rights to the whole of Europe. That is the task ahead for the Council of Europe. It is a task which is essential to the building of a future Europe.