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Resolution 1783 (2011)
Follow-up to the reform of the Council of Europe
1. The Parliamentary Assembly declares
its commitment to a relevant and effective Council of Europe that
is a natural guarantor of “soft” security in a Europe based on the
fundamental values and principles of democracy, respect for human
rights and the rule of law. It regards the Council of Europe as
the institution which sets reference standards and as the privileged
framework for political co-operation in the greater Europe in the context
of achieving greater unity between its members for the purpose of
safeguarding and realising the ideals and principles which are their
common heritage and facilitating their economic and social progress.
2. The Assembly welcomes the fact that a group of eminent personalities
has started a series of discussions on the modern understanding
of European identity and values in the framework of a long-term
strategy for the Council of Europe.
3. In its Opinion
279 (2010) on the budgets and priorities of the Council
of Europe for the 2011 financial year, the Assembly expressed its
support for the first wave of measures introduced by the Secretary
General of the Council of Europe to reform the Organisation, revitalise
it and make it more political, more flexible and more geared to
the needs of European citizens.
4. The Assembly now awaits the Secretary General’s proposals
for the second phase of reform, which should cover strategic aims
for the forthcoming decade. As a statutory organ vested, together
with the Committee of Ministers, with overall responsibility for
the future of the Council of Europe, the Assembly expects to be
fully informed and consulted on the political decisions which the
Secretary General intends to propose.
5. The decline in the member states’ commitment to the Council
of Europe is worrying. It is being reflected, inter
alia, in a persistent refusal by the Committee of Ministers
to give the Organisation a budget commensurate with its tasks, whereas
parallel structures duplicating the Council of Europe’s mechanisms
and instruments are being generously funded within the European
Union.
6. In this context, the Assembly considers that a Council of
Europe summit should be held to give the Organisation fresh political
impetus, make its member states more responsible towards it and,
if need be, redefine its current role.
7. While welcoming the decision by the Committee of Ministers
to move to a biennial budgetary process, the Assembly can only express
its regret again that the Council of Europe’s budgetary crisis is
forcing the Organisation to reduce operational activities that are intended
to help member states to implement reforms and to comply with their
commitments and obligations. It fears that the growing imbalance
between convention-based and operational activities will further
aggravate the downward trend in the Council of Europe’s political relevance
that the reform is intended to reverse. The Assembly is convinced
that the Organisation needs to change the way it works and to offer
operational responses to member states’ needs as one of the fundamental
challenges for the reform process. In this context, it asks member
states to reinvest in the Organisation’s activities the savings
achieved on its functioning thanks to reform.
8. The Assembly supports the reform started by the Secretary
General. It believes that the reform should not result in a further
reduction in the fields of competence and the political role of
the Council of Europe, restricting it to purely technical functions
and to a subordinate position. It supports the idea, expressed by
the Chair of the Committee of Ministers’ Working Party on Institutional Reforms,
that the Council of Europe’s core business does not and should not
exclude “enabling factors” in so far as they contribute to the realisation
of the Council of Europe’s core values of democracy, the rule of
law and human rights. In this context, a stable democracy which respects
human rights is inconceivable without culture, education and social
cohesion, and cannot ignore the problems related to migration, as
the Strasbourg Declaration on Roma has recently shown. The three
core pillars (democracy, human rights and the rule of law) must therefore
reflect this approach. This does not, however, mean that the Council
of Europe should not concentrate the necessarily limited resources
at its disposal on subjects deemed to be matters of political priority.
9. The Assembly commits itself to exploring all possibilities
for reforming its own methods and procedures and, in so doing, contributing
to the broader reform process.
10. The Assembly also underlines the crucial role of the Council
of Europe in fostering the common pan-European legal space through
the promotion of legally binding instruments. The Assembly considers
that the Council of Europe must remain the preferred place for dialogue
between the authorities and between peoples at European level as
well as an important pan-European forum for analysis and anticipation
of destabilising tendencies which jeopardise the cohesion of society,
for the sharing of national experience, for the establishment of
standards, for enhancing universal values, for the dissemination
of good practices and for the search for common answers to the problems
which concern Europe as a whole. It should also continue to play
a privileged role in the dialogue with neighbouring states.
11. The Assembly supports the Secretary General’s objective of
making the Council of Europe a more efficient instrument capable
of transforming its potential into operational decisions and providing
practical and speedy answers to member states for the challenges
facing them. To this end, it declares itself in favour of:
11.1. greater synergy between the
Organisation’s organs, institutions and mechanisms;
11.2. a functional grouping of the structures which support
the various monitoring and steering mechanisms set up in the context
of Council of Europe conventions, in order to make them more effective.
12. The increasing congestion at the European Court of Human Rights,
which is jeopardising the continuity of the European justice system
in the field of human rights protection, is a subject of great concern
to the Assembly. It is following the Interlaken Process closely
and is preparing to make its contribution towards finding courageous
political solutions. In this context, the Assembly:
12.1. points out that the situation
at the Court is a consequence of the systemic problems of member
states’ domestic justice systems, and that the main effort should therefore
relate to remedying the deficiencies of national justice mechanisms;
it therefore calls for efforts to be made, in co-ordination between
the Committee of Ministers and the Assembly, so as to strengthen assistance
programmes aimed at those member states that are the source of the
greatest numbers of applications to the Court;
12.2. takes note of the introduction by the Committee of Ministers
of a mechanism for preliminary assessment of the candidates for
the position of judge by a panel of experts, before a national list
is forwarded to the Assembly. In turn, it resolves to consolidate
its own procedure for the election of judges, particularly with
a view to the accession of the European Union to the European Convention
on Human Rights (ETS No. 5).
13. As regards the current reform process, which also addresses
the structures of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities
of the Council of Europe, its activities and working methods, the
Assembly believes that:
13.1. the
reform of the Congress must be in line with the objectives of the
overall reform of the Council of Europe. In particular, it must
allow better co-ordination and coherence between the activities
of the Congress and other organs and bodies of the Organisation;
13.2. Congress activities should represent an added value for
the Council of Europe and practical usefulness for the local and
regional authorities of the member states, and avoid duplicating
the work done in other bodies, especially in the sphere of human
rights;
13.3. the current practice whereby members of the Congress participate
in its activities at the Council of Europe’s expense is difficult
to justify and should be stopped.
14. The Assembly takes note that discussions are in progress about
the holding of conferences of specialised ministers of the Council
of Europe. In this context:
14.1. it
reiterates its belief that specialised ministers, who deal directly
with large numbers of societal problems, should play a more active
role in defining the priorities of the Council of Europe. The conferences
must above all meet a real political need;
14.2. it believes that the idea of organising sessions of the
Committee of Ministers at the level of specialised ministers merits
an in-depth examination;
14.3. it resolves to invite, when appropriate, specialised ministers
of member states of the Council of Europe to address plenary sittings.
15. In the context of the consideration of the reform of the Forum
for the Future of Democracy, the Assembly wishes to reiterate its
proposal concerning the need to strengthen the Council of Europe’s
democracy pillar by grouping together the various relevant activities
on this subject within a Strasbourg democracy forum, as a generic
structure. It also expresses the wish that a new youth parliament
might be convened in Strasbourg in the framework of this forum,
in association with the European Parliament, without setting up
a new structure.
16. The Assembly draws attention to the need for the Council of
Europe to ensure synergy between decision makers at the highest
level, citizens and civil society.
17. The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty has brought new
opportunities for strengthening the partnership between the Council
of Europe and the European Union, and has opened up the prospect
of accession by the European Union to the European Convention on
Human Rights, as well as to other Council of Europe conventions
and mechanisms. In this context, the Assembly:
17.1. strongly encourages the European
Union to take full advantage of these opportunities so as to move towards
a truly united Europe on the basis of the same values and drawing
on the same standards;
17.2. suggests that a detailed study be conducted on the division
of competences between the Council of Europe and the European Union,
as well as other major European organisations;
17.3. emphasises that a veritable strategic partnership between
the European Union and the Council of Europe should be an important
element of the latter’s reform and calls on the Secretary General
to work to this end;
17.4. for its part, resolves to increase substantially its co-operation
with the European Parliament, inter alia through the
informal joint European Parliament/Parliamentary Assembly body which
is to be established to co-ordinate the communication of information,
particularly in the context of the accession of the European Union
to the European Convention on Human Rights;
17.5. emphasises the benefits which may also come from closer
relations between the political groups of the two European parliamentary
assemblies.
18. The Assembly reiterates its firm intention to follow closely
the next phases of the Organisation’s reform and to make an even
greater contribution, through all its activities, to ensuring that
the Council of Europe remains a reference institution in its fundamental
fields of competence and a driving force for multidimensional pan-European
co-operation in other sectors of its activities.
19. The Assembly resolves to examine, periodically and in detail,
the Council of Europe’s activities and programmes in order to assess
their political relevance, and requests to be consulted on the choice
of priorities as well as on decisions not to renew certain activities.