THE 75-YEAR YOUNG COUNCIL OF EUROPE - Protection of human rights as a central goal

EUROPEAN SOCIETY COUDENHOVE-KALERGI Walter Schwimmer, Secretary General of the Council of Europe 1999 to 2004 The community to be created was to have an assembly, a council, permanent representatives, a civil service, financial resources and legislative and judicial powers. This was not the statute of the Council of Europe, but the European utopia of the Bohemian King George Podrebrad from 1464 after the fall of Constantinople. Other utopias followed, all of which had in common the preceding experience of terrible wars in Europe. It took another warlike catastrophe, the Battle of the Nations of the Second World War, to make Europeans realise that they had far more in common than what could divide them. Although Richard Coudenhove Kalergi had provided the main impetus for a pan-European solution with his work "Pan-Europa", published in 1923, and the founding of the Pan-Europa movement, nationalism was once again to cause for the youth of Europe to bleed to death on the battlefields. But the idea of voluntary co-operation between the nations of Europe and the joint preservation of Europe's heritage of ideals could no longer be suppressed after the end of the second world war. This time it was to become concrete. One person who played a key role in transforming the vision of a united Europe into the founding of the Council of Europe was Winston Churchill, who proposed the creation of a "Council of Europe" in one of his weekly radio addresses in 1943, in the middle of the war, to take effect after the peace treaty, together with the enemies of the time! Churchill was also one of the driving and organising forces behind the 1948 Hague Conference on the future of Europe. Coudenhove-Kalergi was present, but others had the say, especially politicians such as Adenauer, Degasperi and Schuman. On the one hand, Richard was disappointed that he was not given a special role; on the other hand, he had achieved what he had aimed for, that the politicians would finally take the reins. And that is exactly what they did. One year later, on 5th May 1949, ten European democracies met at St James's Palace in London to forge a closer union among its members, to protect and promote the ideals and principles that are their common heritage and to foster their economic and social progress. The Council of Europe had become a reality. The Cold War was already dominating East-West relations, Europe was breathing with one lung, as Pope John Paul II so aptly put it. The states of the Eastern Bloc were banned from joining the Council of Europe by the Soviet Union. By the time the Berlin Wall came down, 23 states had found their way to Strasbourg. The new community of states made its greatest achievement after just one year. The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is still unique today. Over 200 conventions and treaties have been concluded within the framework of the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe was the driving force behind the abolition of the death penalty. At the turn of the millennium, as Secretary General, I was able to announce that the Europe of the Council of Europe had become a death penalty-free zone; with the downer that the Russian Federation had only suspended the execution of the death penalty through a presidential moratorium, but had not ratified the abolition. The Council of Europe and in particular its Parliamentary Assembly played their part in the largely bloodless transition of the Central and Eastern European countries to democracy. Mikhail Gorbachev visited the Parliamentary Assembly in 1989 and coined the term "pan-European house"; a similar comparison, of the East and West wings of the common house, had been used 20 years earlier by the Austrian Federal Chancellor Josef Klaus before the Parliamentary Assembly. The first country from the former Eastern Bloc to be admitted to the Council of Europe was Austria's neighbour Hungary. During my term of office as Secretary General, the last ex-Yugoslav republics, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the former State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, became members. On the same day, the South Caucasian states of Armenia and Azerbaijan were able to join the family of European democracies. The two countries were (and still are) at war, with thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. Azerbaijan in particular was also accused of serious human rights violations. However, Azerbaijan was admitted under political pressure from the Committee of Ministers. Following the admission of Monaco in the autumn, the enlargement of the Council of Europe had reached its natural limits. Belarus had to stay out because of Lukashenko's dictatorship. Kosovo's independence is not recognised by all member states and its possible accession is currently the subject of heated debate; Serbia is threatening to withdraw if Kosovo becomes a member. Then there is the Russian Federation. Its accession to the Council of Europe in February 1996 was preceded by heated discussions. There was great scepticism as to whether Russia would fit into the Council of Europe's system of values. A secret test vote by the EPP Group was exactly 50:50. I concluded my speech in plenary with the words "now we can only hope and pray". The fact that not so "high" politics played a role here too was demonstrated by the fact that a number of MPs received calls from their heads of government with the impressive "wish" to vote in favour of accession. Russia did indeed bring a rucksack full of problems with it. Chechnya was just one of many, albeit a serious one. Developments in relations with the Council of Europe - from cooperation to confrontation - can also be seen in the developments of the Chechnya conflict. With the exclusion of Putin's Russian Federation after the invasion of Ukraine, the Council of Europe has drawn the only possible conclusion. At 75 years old, the Council of Europe is the oldest organisation of European unification. The strongest, however, is the European Union, which emerged from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community. The two European institutions have much in common. Above all, these are the fundamental values of democracy, the rule of law and human rights. Two institutions that were founded with the same intention, that have the same vision, even if they have different characteristics, must work together. There is only One Europe. This is also emphasised by the commonality of the symbols. The European flag with the 12 golden stars and the European anthem, Beethoven's Ode to Joy, are the emblems of the Council of Europe and are also available to the Union as a symbol of a united Europe. Does this mean that the Council of Europe still has a right to exist as the Union's big but poorer brother? Could its tasks be taken over - for example by Union organisations such as the Eastern Partnership? The Council of Europe has the necessary and appropriate instruments to ensure that its values are observed and implemented, above all the European Court of Human Rights, the Anti-Torture Commission and the Venice Commission on Democracy through Law. The Council of Europe has not become less important due to the growth of the Union, quite the opposite. There are European states that have no prospect of Union membership in the foreseeable future or do not even aspire to such membership. After Brexit, the Council of Europe will also become more important for the United Kingdom, which wants to leave the Union but not Europe. It embodies the pan-European element in the European unification process, the one Europe. In this sense, the Council of Europe is the legacy of Richard Coudenhove Kalergi.