2 days ago
Council of Europe set to embrace human rights reform after migration backlash
The Council of Europe has appeared to bow to pressure to reform its human rights convention, as it risks losing members over growing political backlash against migration.
Alain Berset, secretary general of the council, said the European Convention for Human Rights (ECHR) needed 'adaptation' and that there would be 'no taboo' in discussions on reform. 'We are witnessing a world where things are changing rapidly,' he told The Times on Thursday.
'It is accelerating. We see this, and it means that it is normal that we must also adapt to this. We need adaptation. We need discussion about the rules that we want to have, and there is no taboo.'
Mr Berset, a former president of Switzerland, said he was willing to begin talks with European leaders who have been critical of the convention. 'We need to have political discussions … at the committee of ministers of the CoE, or directly with me because I am in charge of the convention," he said.
His comments mark a shift from the position he took less than two weeks ago, when he accused political leaders who had criticised the convention of 'politicising" the issue.
Last month, nine European countries, led by Italian and Danish prime ministers Giorgia Meloni and Mette Fredriksen, issued an open letter that challenged the ECHR and called for an amendment. The aim was for governments to have greater freedom to expel migrants who commit crimes in their countries.
They said the convention drafted in 1950 was not suitable to modern times and the vast refugee crisis on Europe's borders. "The ideas themselves are universal and everlasting," they said in a letter. "However, we now live in a globalised world where people migrate across borders on a completely different scale."
They also referred to "hostile states" who they accused of flooding European borders with migrants. "We need to be able to take effective steps to counter hostile states that are trying to use our values and rights against us. For example, by instrumentalising migrants at our borders," the letter said.
In his response then, Mr Berset urged the countries not to 'weaken the convention, but to keep it strong and relevant'.
UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper also criticised the framework this week, saying a third of successful asylum claims were being granted on 'exceptional grounds' due to a judge's interpretation of Article 8 of the convention. 'That is not exceptional, that is a much broader proportion,' she said.
Mr Berset's comments come as the UK's Conservative party are set to launch an inquiry into whether the country should withdraw from the convention.
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch is to say in a speech on Friday that she is 'increasingly of the view' that the UK should withdraw from the treaty. "I am yet to see a clear and coherent route to change within our current legal structures," she will say.
Shadow home secretary Chris Philp said he did not take Mr Berset's comments about reform 'very seriously", when speaking to the BBC on Friday morning. Mr Philp said there had been two previous attempts to amend the convention 'that didn't work' and pointed to Mr Berset's immediate 'rebuffing' of the open letter.
'I'm afraid I don't have the view that it can be reformed,' he added.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz blamed migration for the rise of anti-Semitism in his country, calling it a "terrible challenge".
"We have a sort of imported anti-Semitism with the big numbers of migrants we have had within the last 10 years," Mr Merz said told US broadcaster Fox News on Thursday.
He was responding to a report from the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Anti-Semitism, which documented 8,627 anti-Semitic incidents in 2024 – a 77 per cent increase compared with the previous year.
