Parliamentary Assembly

Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am really very pleased, for many reasons, to take this opportunity of addressing you at this year's autumn session of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly.

First of all, the Council of Europe and the peoples of Europe are this week celebrating a particularly important anniversary: the fiftieth anniversary of the Council of Europe’s adoption of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Secondly, it is almost fifty years to the day since the first German delegates were allowed to take their seats in what was then the Council’s “Consultative Assembly” – an important step towards Germany's return to the European family of nations. Thirdly, the Council of Europe is again having to prove itself today in one of its essential functions, as the moral – and also political – authority responsible for safeguarding basic human rights in Europe.

Last Sunday, the people of Yugoslavia opted for democratic change. There is no doubt about that. I think it is now up to all of us to stand together and insist that the wish expressed by the Serbian people must be respected and, above all, that there must be no escalation into any kind of violence. A democratic Yugoslavia – in other words, a Yugoslavia which respects human rights – will once again take its rightful place in a Europe of equal nations.

Ladies and gentlemen, it has repeatedly been said that our continent cannot be defined in geographical terms only. Throughout its history, Europe has also been a political project – for better or for worse. Europe is the creation of its people. That was what made it so important for courageous people to set about building a new, free and just Europe, in the immediate aftermath of the genocide and devastation of the second world war.

In May 1948, over 1000 delegates from more than twenty countries met in the Hague for that purpose. At the end of their conference, they decided to work for economic and political union in Europe, based on a common charter of fundamental human rights. That was the beginning of the Council of Europe and also – I think its members can be proud of this – the real beginning of the European Union. Incidentally, the founders of this movement were by no means politicians only. They were men and women who were convinced of the validity of the principles of the Enlightenment – of the ideals of human freedom and dignity, and the rule of law – and who were determined to uphold them. Even in Germany – the country that had brought so much suffering and destruction on its neighbours and itself – many people, and especially young people, joined this “Council of Europe movement”. The Council of Europe, founded in 1949, gave the fledgling Federal Republic of Germany an ideal opportunity to show that it was serious about democracy, the rule of law, and respect for other cultures and other people. The Council of Europe was the first international political organization which the Federal Republic of Germany was allowed to join. This turned former enemies into partners.

Further stages on the path to European unification followed, leading to political, economic, social and monetary union – all things that the Council of Europe's founders could only have dreamed of. That is why the Council still symbolises the successful first step towards something we all take for granted today – Germany being a full part of a Europe which is growing together. Let me say clearly here that Germany and Germans owe the Council of Europe an enormous debt of gratitude – and know it.

Ladies and gentlemen, since 1989-90 at the latest, when the major changes set in, the Council of Europe has acquired truly pan-European significance. In a few important areas, the new face of all Europe is being shaped here. As in earlier decades, the Council is again supporting the establishment of law-based democratic structures in our continent. Since the Berlin wall came down, your organisation has admitted sixteen reformed central and east European states, and two more will be joining shortly. Neither the political nor the practical importance of the opening of the Council of Europe to central and eastern Europe, which began in 1990, can be overestimated. It is an example of solidarity in action, focused on the building of a Europe based on shared values. Step by step, the Council is realising the vision of a Europe with no dividing lines.

Joining the Council of Europe also means joining a community of values, centred on the protection of certain inalienable rights. Europe is built on this foundation of political, social and economic rights – in short, the whole list of civil and human rights. This must never be questioned. Monitoring and protecting those rights are the Council’s special contributions to the building of our continent.

These shared values provide a reliable framework for intensive co-operation between all the countries of Europe. That is why full integration of new members from central and eastern Europe within the Council of Europe plays an important part in helping the whole continent to converge, economically and politically. And Council membership remains the condition for participation in the process of European unification within the European Union.

The Council of Europe also contributes significantly to the harmonisation of law and the emergence of a shared understanding of law. It has adopted over 170 conventions, covering – from cultural co-operation to biomedicine – a broad range of social issues, and all reflecting the same determination to defend basic rights against all arbitrary interference.

In the last fifty years and more, the Council of Europe has created a legal framework which has enabled politically enlightened, tolerant and peace-loving civil societies to develop in Europe – a massive achievement, even if it has not always hit the headlines. Ladies and gentlemen, protecting human rights in Europe is the most important of our shared tasks. The European Convention on Human Rights is our general signpost here. It, and the European Court of Human Rights which grew out of it, are important instruments for protection of the human rights of the now nearly 800 million people who live in the forty-one Council of Europe member states. Ensuring respect for human rights is, and will remain, an ongoing task.

In the past ten years, conflicts between countries – and increasingly within countries too – have repeatedly made it all too clear that the end of the cold war did not mean the end of all conflicts. Europe has learned some important lessons from this. In recent years, it has become noticeably better organised. It has tried to find joint answers to the challenges that face it, and a joint platform for its action. There are, however, three essential areas where we must push ahead with our joint efforts.

First of all, we must try even harder than we have so far to make the European legal area a reality, and ensure that the European community of values, and the duties which go with it, are respected. The Council of Europe has a pioneering role to play here.-More than any other European organisation, it has, in recent years, devised effective instruments to monitor member states’ compliance with their commitments. Potential irregularities can thus be recognised at an early stage, and corrective action taken. The monitoring procedure of the Parliamentary Assembly and the Committee of Ministers plays a key role here. The Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance, and the Human Rights Commissioner, whom the Council appointed for the first time last year, are further vital instruments in its preventive armoury.

It would certainly be useful to let people in the member states see more clearly just how beneficial these institutions are. One way of doing this might be to publish the results of the Committee of Ministers’ monitoring procedure.

Secondly, a Europe of people and of human rights – which the Council of Europe has proclaimed as its objective since it was founded — is incompatible with racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia. The history of the last century has shown that we Europeans must tackle these murderous tendencies early and resolutely. The fact that racism has not been eradicated, and that there are people who refuse to learn from this bloody past, is clear even today on Europe’s streets – and, sadly, I have to say, on Germany’s too. I assure you that the federal government's position on this is firm and uncompromising: a tolerant society cannot – and will not – allow intolerance and racist violence under any circumstances. In the fight against right-wing extremism, Germany is committed to defending the rule of law and the state’s exclusive right to use force, to protecting minorities and the persecuted, and also to engaging in dialogue with all those who feel excluded and are still prepared to accept dialogue. At the same time, ladies and gentlemen, although state action is important and necessary, we must rely, above all, on one thing – on a democratic civil society’s power of resistance.

We – not just the federal government, but the whole of democratic Germany – feel that our efforts in this area get tremendous support from the Council of Europe’s activities. Its programme of action against racism and intolerance is genuinely exemplary. I do not intend to go into details here, since you all know about it, but I would like to emphasise the Council’s “best examples” programme. As I see it, this scheme, which publicises and rewards commendable initiatives and projects taken by governments – and especially individuals – throughout Europe, is a good example of the path we must all follow. These “best examples” show us that racism and intolerance not only must be resisted, but can be resisted – by anyone who wants to do so.

Thirdly, it is in Europe’s interest that people in the member states should take more notice of the Council of Europe than they have so far. Europe must not be seen as a construct put together by technocrats. It is people who give the European idea life and substance. However, people can identify with the European idea only if the great Europe embodied in the Council of Europe respects the cultural diversity and the identity of the nations gathered under its roof.

Language, as you all know, ladies and gentlemen, plays a vital role here. I would thus be particularly pleased if German – which is, with Russian, the most widely spoken mother tongue in the Council of Europe area – were given greater weight in the Organisation.

Ladies and gentlemen, at the start of the twenty-first century, the range of tasks facing the Council of Europe is as broad and demanding as ever. When he first addressed the Parliamentary Assembly on 1 August 1950, Carlo Schmid said: “We are expected to play the liveliest part in the endeavours of democratic Europeans who are in the process of creating a Europe of freedom and justice in whose midst injustices and discord can be resolved in a spirit of peace and liberal human rights.” Now that it has successfully incorporated nearly all the states of Europe, the Council of Europe already symbolises the solidarity of the continent's peoples. It should therefore throw its full potential weight behind I the forthcoming major reforms, and emphasise the independent, complementary role it can play in the process of broader European integration.

To create a modem European society, we need the Council of Europe's contribution too. Action to combat corruption and money laundering, and racism and xenophobia, and action to promote social rights, are particularly important in this age of globalisation. There are other questions, too, which the Council has recently been tackling – such as bioethics and Internet crime. All of these problems will be important in the future, and the Council must take them up and pursue them resolutely. In doing all of this, it will also be playing a decisive part in securing Europe’s future as a base for business and industry. Now more than ever, we need its expertise and commitment to support our continent’s development in various key areas.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Council of Europe combines great experience of international co-operation with its function as a “factory of ideas”, as Robert Schuman once called it. That is why it is still a basic key element in the architecture of Europe – and why I am confident that it will continue to make a pivotal contribution to building Europe in the twenty-first century. Thank you for your attention.