Opening words by President of the Republic Tarja Halonen at the Seminar on the Reform of the European Social Charter at the House of the Estates on 8 February 2011

Photo: Eero Kuosmanen / Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland

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Last autumn marked the 60th anniversary of the European Human Rights Convention. This year we celebrate the fifty years of the European Social Charter.

At the time of the creation of the Social Charter in 1961, many European countries were just taking the first steps in their efforts towards building a welfare state. The Charter set the common minimum standards and also constituted an agreement on the guidelines for higher standards and strengthened the common European value base. The Social Charter solidified equality and solidarity towards our fellow human beings as shared European values.

The Human Rights Convention and the Social Charter were among the first legally binding human rights treaties, leading the way for the rest of the world. At the time, Finland was not yet able to participate in the drafting of either of these documents, but was among the first countries to ratify the corresponding UN conventions drafted in 1966. Finland has also made every effort to foster the realisation of both European and universal human rights. For this reason, we are especially delighted and honoured to be able to organise this international seminar marking the 50th anniversary of the Social Charter.

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In recent years some have questioned the need for a European human rights framework, or the need for the Council of Europe for that matter. After all, we have the European Union! I have often answered saying that Europe needs both the Union and the Council. The former is an economic and political union of 27 countries. The latter is an organisation promoting the interests of the ordinary citizens; its jurisdiction is not limited to 27 countries, but covers 47 nations and 800 million people in an area extending from Reykjavik to Vladivostok.
The fact that the Council of Europe in practice covers the whole Europe is important not only for the individuals, but also for the European states and their unions. It is equally important that all 47 countries are committed to the European Human Rights Convention and that 43 of them are also committed to the European Social Charter. Together these two legal documents, key to human rights in Europe, provide protection for 98 per cent of the citizens of our continent.

I am delighted that, after lengthy debate, we finally have full justification for examining civil and political rights and social rights as a coherent entity.

By 1991, when Finland became the eighteenth country to commit itself to the European Social Charter, the treaty had already reached thirty years of age. Nonetheless, it remained an unknown – or, as the expression went, invisible – document to many of the countries that had already ratified it. Not one single country up to that time had been addressed for deficiencies in legislation or practices.

This year, as we celebrate its fifty-year journey, this significant document has become a functional and recognised international treaty, and one of the cornerstones of European social justice. It has become a model adopted by other continents, including the Americas and southern Africa with the Social Charter of the Americas, and the Charter of Fundamental Social Rights of the South African Development Community. Northern Africa and western and southern Asia are in the process of following this example.

As we who are here today all know, the European Social Charter had an essential impact on the drafting of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights agreed in Nice in 2000. For this treaty the standards were mainly adopted from the Revised Social Charter of 1996. This was in spite of the fact that not all EU Member States had committed themselves to it at that point, nor have all Member States yet done so today. In any case, as it became part of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, many of the rights of the Social Charter became part of EU justice. The Treaty of Nice was adopted as part of the Treaty of Lisbon, which in turn made these norms binding on 25 EU countries from 1 December 2009.

The fact that the Council of Europe and the EU have a largely coherent foundation of social norms, sets particular challenges for the bodies monitoring compliance with the treaties, and for the organisation of their mutual relationship. Monitoring of the Human Rights Convention is the responsibility of the European Court of Human Rights, while that of the Social Charter belongs to the European Committee of Social Rights. Monitoring of the EU’s fundamental rights is the responsibility of national courts of law and, ultimately, of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Three largely overlapping regulations and three supranational monitoring systems.

It is more than important to be aware of, and know, what the other monitoring bodies are doing. An optical cable enabling the real-time monitoring of each other’s decision-making would be needed between Strasbourg and Luxembourg. Even though the Council of Europe and the EU may, as organisations, have differing policy objectives and operating ideas, their jurisdiction should share the same direction. The idea of the key administrators of justice reaching differing conclusions on similar matters would be difficult for citizens to understand. To date, this has not happened, nor should it happen in future.

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In 1998, I had the opportunity of participating in a group of five persons, chaired by Mr Mario Soares, long-time Prime Minister of Portugal, tasked with outlining the imminent development measures of the Council of Europe. The organisation had doubled its membership within a short period of time and was now faced with the need to reform its structures and procedures. We made a number of proposals to that end.

For example, we considered it important that the independence of the court system in relation to the executive power to be developed in all member states. We also considered that dialogue between international monitoring bodies and national bodies as well as coordination among international monitoring bodies be increased.

What has been most memorable for me, however, is the general demand noted in the introduction to our report, according to which the primary task of the Council of Europe in the converging and globalising market should be the protection of those who have been placed in a vulnerable position: “globalisation without poverty”. In the Millennium Summit in 2000, the United Nations placed poverty eradication and social justice at the centre of its development efforts. The notion of protecting the vulnerable party is recorded in several places in the Social Charter, and it is this very notion that we need to bear in mind today in the further development of the Council of Europe.

So, what could these future steps be?

The first important step is already being taken. The accession of the European Union to the Human Rights Convention has been under preparation for some time and is likely to emerge as a subject of political decision-making in the near future. This inevitably leads to a follow-up question: should the EU also consider accession to the European Social Charter?

This thought could even be elaborated further: why continue with two treaties in the first place? The EU has successfully combined civil, political and social rights under a single treaty; could the Council of Europe codify the current two treaties as a single treaty? This could be linked to a discussion on the third generation rights that should be included in a coherent European Human Rights Convention.

The codification of regulations does not mean that the special characteristics of social rights should be faded out altogether. Their collective and dynamic nature can, and should, be preserved in future. However, where the question is one of fundamental survival, social rights could, and should, also be safeguarded as individual rights.

The right to submit complaints has been extended, by both the UN and the ILO, from organisations to individuals. A similar reform in the monitoring practices of the Council of Europe might be the first step towards the convergence of the monitoring systems for civil rights and social rights within the Council.

In the long term, the monitoring of the realisation of human rights in Europe should take place through a more harmonised system than exists today. This is why all steps in that direction should be considered progress. Strengthening the Secretariat in charge of monitoring social rights, enabling the submission of complaints by individuals, and promoting the expertise and independence of the monitoring committee, are all efforts geared towards increasing the efficiency of the monitoring of social rights, and bringing them closer to the monitoring of civil and political rights. The accession of the European Union to the Social Charter would also support development in that direction. Altogether, these would be the first steps on the road towards a coherent European human rights framework.

In the era of sustainable development and globalisation, we need to pay special attention to social justice. I hope that we Europeans could also in the future be proud of the fact that our continent is a forerunner in the implementation of democracy and human rights.