The Council of Europe's Secretary General, Alain Berset, concluded his visit to Vienna, which focused on the need to renew emphasis on democratic security to guarantee peace and stability in the European continent and effectively address old and new geopolitical challenges Europe faces today.
Alain Berset addresses OSCE
"Our two organisations are peace projects," Secretary General Berset stressed in his address to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Permanent council, the decision-making body of the 57-state organisation. However, security challenges in today's Europe test both institutions' capacity to act in time. War in Ukraine driving impunity, disinformation and foreign influence, climate change and artificial intelligence, the crisis in multilateralism, increasing rearmament and democratic backsliding - these are just a few of the security challenges that today's Europe faces.
"We could soon face a continent with stronger militaries but weaker democracies," the Secretary General argued, stressing the need for a security architecture protecting Europe both from outside attacks and internal erosion. "That is only possible when we transcend the old traditional divide between "hard" or "soft" security, add a democratic dimension to our understanding of security, and start thinking in terms of democratic security".
The themes raised in his address to the OSCE Permanent council also featured prominently in his meeting with the OSCE Secretary General Feridun Sinirlioğlu. Mr Berset stressed that the OSCE and the Council of Europe bore a shared responsibility to promote democratic resilience as a first line of security on the continent. They discussed avenues for strengthening cooperation between the two organisations in areas such as human-rights-compliant drug and addiction policies and their youth dimension, combatting organised crime, human trafficking and migrant smuggling, protecting the environment. Alain Berset suggested that the two organisations should develop synergies to foster Ukraine's democratic security, resilience and reconstruction, and continue to support children of Ukraine.
Use the Council of Europe's tools in a pan-European context
During his visit to Vienna, the Secretary General met with the Federal President of Austria Alexander Van der Bellen, the Third President of the Austrian National Council Doris Bures, Minister of Justice Anna Sporrer, Acting Head of Chancellery Alexander Pröll, and State Secretary at the Ministry for European and International Affairs Sepp Schellhorn.
The Secretary General's key message to his Austrian counterparts was the need to use and explore the Council of Europe's tools in a pan-European context and beyond to promote common fundamental values. A key priority is the new Democratic Pact for Europe - a collective effort to renew the foundations of Europe's democratic life, built on three pillars: education, protection, and innovation.
The Council of Europe's support to Ukraine was also in the centre of discussions. The organisation's priorities in this area are legal responses to Russia's violations of international law, supporting reconstruction through an ambitious Action Plan of reforms, judgments of the European Court of Human Rights', work for the children of Ukraine, a future Special Tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine, as well as the international compensation mechanism to ensure justice for victims, the first component of which - the Register of Damage - Austria has consistently supported.
Democratic security at the heart of Europe's new order
"Thirty years of democratic security and the New Pact for Democracy: the road ahead" was the theme of the Secretary General's public lecture at the Vienna Diplomatic Academy School of International Relations on 30 October. The event was organised together with the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs and the Central European University.
"We have been naïve, thinking that democracy would simply expand, generation after generation, and that peace in Europe would simply endure," the Secretary General argued. "Democracy, security, remembrance - these words, which once defined the post-war order, are today dismissed as 'woke'. In this new world, democracy is seen as a weakness, truth as an opinion, and justice as an option." The greatest danger is not collapse - it is sleepwalking into the future where liberty is restricted in the name of protecting it, where rules are bent under the guise of sovereignty, security or emergency, where institutions are weakened out of calculation or cynicism. A New Democratic Pact for Europe is set to reverse the trend, Alain Berset reiterated. "Today's Europe cannot rest on fear, force or division. We must make democratic security the heart of Europe's new order - and our first line of defence".
Speech by the Secretary General
New Democratic Pact for Europe
Secretary General Alain Berset
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe
Vienna School of International Studies
