Europe's bleak future: More military, less democracy?

Europe is drifting toward an era of growing militarisation and weakening democracy, the Council of Europe’s secretary general has warned, as he urged governments to act before the continent finds itself in danger.

“In a few years we will live in a highly militarised continent with backsliding democracy,” Alain Berset pointed out.

“Just imagine what happens if one of your highly militarised neighbours sees an extremist group take power because of democratic backsliding. It could be dangerous.”

Speaking to Times of Malta, Berset said the continent needs a renewed “democratic pact” to strengthen its institutions and prevent history from repeating itself. At the same time, he stressed that any reform of Europe’s human rights framework – including discussions on migration – must remain firmly rooted in international law.

Berset was speaking during a visit to Malta, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the council’s committee of ministers.

Issues such as disinformation and electoral interference are becoming ever more problematic, Berset argued, particularly through social media. But there is no point trying to turn back the clock to a pre-social media age, he said. “We need to adapt, to find tools to manage the quality of information” and find ways to build a healthy democracy for future generations, Berset said.

Doing this will also mean adopting a new approach to Europe’s security, he argues.

Malta, which was brutally bombarded during the war, knows better than others what it means to see violence, brutality and to have no respect for rule of law and international relations

Berset says that in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and rising tensions between Europe and the US, “the architecture of security must be renewed and rethought”, with “legitimate” reasons to reorganise Europe’s military security. “But the opposition between hard and soft security is outdated,” he said, calling for an approach that “integrates democracy and strong institutions but, at the same time, military defence”.

How this works for neutral countries such as Malta and Berset’s own home country of Switzerland is less clear. “The concept of neutrality is probably totally different today to what it was 30 years ago,” Berset says. “But it is the role of neutral countries to define what they understand by this concept.”

The Council of Europe is “open to discussion” on updating human rights conventions to reflect migration concerns, but any talks “must respect international law,” he said.

Earlier this year, Prime Minister Robert Abela touted the possibility of including human rights convention reform on the agenda for Malta’s presidency, arguing that conventions no longer reflect current realities of irregular migration. The issue was conspicuously absent when Malta unveiled its agenda several weeks later.

When asked about the matter, Berset warned that “we should never forget the lessons of history”, recalling how the Council of Europe emerged from the ashes of World War II. “Malta, which was brutally bombarded during the war, knows better than others what it means to see violence, brutality and to have no respect for rule of law and international relations,” Berset said.

“This is exactly what the European Convention on Human Rights is about. It was created for this,” Berset said. “The main thing we need to protect, particularly, when things are going wrong, is the convention and the European Court of Human Rights.”

However, Berset added, “clearly, the world is changing, and we are able to take on discussions and debates about migration in the institutions”. These discussions need to take place “in the context of the Council of Europe and not outside,” Berset said, taking aim at a group of nine countries that had called on European courts to reinterpret the European Convention on Human Rights to make it easier to expel migrants who commit a crime.

“They started pressuring the courts from outside. It was wrong,” Berset said. “We need to do this at the political level and in the Council of Europe.” “We are really open to this discussion and to see how we can integrate all discussions about migration, because they are legitimate and a reality,” he said.

However, any discussions “must respect international law, otherwise we are not respecting what our predecessors did, for good reasons, after World War II”. “We are able to address all issues in the right place,” he replied when asked whether this was the case, adding that he was “really grateful to the Maltese presidency” for the issues it has placed as a priority on its agenda.