“Democratic security is our continent’s answer to the emerging world order.”

The opening session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe remains a cornerstone event of European democracy. Parliamentarians from across the whole continent come together to debate the direction of a common European democratic future.

A future with a ruptured world order. This was highlighted by the Council of Europe's Secretary General Alain Berset in his address to the Parliamentary Assembly, describing the times we live in:

"What is new is the acceleration of crises. It comes with a constant flow of information, and the volatility it creates. By now, the patterns are clear. Positions change within days, if not hours. Threats are made, only to be reversed ... Power politics have always existed. What is troubling is where they are reappearing: within alliances; inside spaces built on law, consent, and predictability. And that is why we are speaking of a rupture in the world order."

The roots of the acceleration of crises

The crises had not come out of nowhere, Alain Berset emphasised, noting the roots in the failure to respect the post-Cold War ,settlement designed to preserve Ukraine's sovereignty if it gave up nuclear arms, a guarantee that has been broken more than once; in the frustrations following the 2008 global financial crisis; and in what became a competition between countries over medical supplies and vaccines in the Covid crisis. He reminded the assembled lawmakers that "as fear spread, misinformation filled the gaps".

"Law is Europe's form of power."

Secretary General Berset set out how the wrong reaction to great-power competition could be damaging for Europe:

"Europe is told that insisting on international law is naïve in an age of hard power. That rules must bend for security. But look at where this leads. We are hearing threats of military action over the territory of a member state".

We should not "choose between law and security". What has happened in some other regions should not be Europe's model. Instead, Alain Berset asserted that democratic security was the way forward:

"Law is Europe's form of power. It is what creates autonomy without domination, co-operation without submission, and security without surrender."

A tale of two worlds

Comparing Europe's situation to the description by Charles Dickens of the old order breaking in A Tale of Two Cities, the Secretary General pointed out that Europe is again at a fork in the road:

"Europe is facing, once again, two possible worlds. One where security is reduced to force, and sovereignty becomes negotiable. And one where security is built on rights, institutions, and law."

Alain Berset stressed the need to cut through the noise and keep Europe's attention on bringing peace to Ukraine, protecting the European legal framework, and reminding the assembled lawmakers that Europe is not weak. This was a decision that European countries have to get right, but it was not all bleak he told the winter plenary of the Parliamentary Assembly:

"Middle powers are not powerless ... The space between great powers is not empty. It is where Europe must act. In Greenland or crises like Venezuela, this moment cannot be reduced to a binary choice between sterile condemnation and blind support ... Europe's task is different. To refuse a world governed by exceptions, double standards, or competing spheres of influence. And to insist that security cannot be built by bargaining away the principles that sustain it."

The Council of Europe: acting for human rights, democracy and the rule of law

The Secretary General put forward the strong efforts coming from the Council of Europe to sustain European values, listing the substantial support for Ukraine (and noting the vital role the organisation can and will play after the fighting stops), the organisation's efforts to fight disinformation, and the process led by the organisation to address migration issues within the framework of the European Convention on Human Rights. The organisation ensures that no democracy has to face these difficult choices alone.

Alain Berset's address was a call to action, but it was also an expression of the vitality of Europe and its legal principles. The continent has now to act on this almost dizzying acceleration of geopolitics:

"Democratic security is our continent's answer to the emerging world order."

Following the Secretary General's address, he took questions from members of the Parliamentary Assembly, allowing oversight of the activities of the Council of Europe as a whole. Among other subjects, he addressed disinformation, preserving the independence of the European Court of Human Rights, and the Council of Europe's support for accountability for Ukraine.

Read the Secretary General's speech in full

Watch the Secretary General's speech in full

Agenda of the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly

Secretary General Alain Berset

The Council of Europe's support for Ukraine

New Democratic Pact for Europe