B Explanatory
memorandum by Mr Salles, rapporteur
1 Introduction
1. Since his first election in 2009, the Secretary General
of the Council of Europe, Mr Thorbjørn Jagland, has implemented
a series of measures intended to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency
of the Council of Europe while reducing its costs, particularly
its salary expenses. The measures taken to contain staff expenditure,
namely the doubling of the period between seniority increments at
the same grade for staff with a fixed-term or an indefinite-term
contract and the elimination of 137 posts or positions in the Ordinary
Budget since 2011, made it possible to generate €15 million in savings
during Mr Jagland's first term of office.
2. In parallel with this savings effort, the Secretariat General
has reinforced the Organisation's capacity to raise extrabudgetary
resources (voluntary contributions by member and non-member States
and by the European Union, joint programmes with the European Union
and other sources of funds) so as to make the Council of Europe
even more operational. These extrabudgetary resources are intended
to be used in reinforcing the relevance and the impact of the co-operation
activities implemented by the Secretariat General. Between 2009
and 2013, the amount of extrabudgetary resources grew by 33% in
quantitative terms, from €27 million in 2009 to over €36 million
in 2013.
3. However, these additional resources do not satisfy the financing
needs for traditional activities and investment expenditure (buildings
and information technology). The situation has become more critical
since the Committee of Ministers decided to make zero nominal growth
(ZNG) the rule for the 2014-2015 biennial budget (and for the 2016-2017
biennium). This means that member States' obligatory contributions
are no longer adjusted by the rate of inflation recorded for France
(the Organisation's host country).
4. This policy can have extremely prejudicial consequences for
the Council of Europe. For example, if the member States' contributions
are kept at their 2015 level over the next three years, with average
inflation of 1.4% and a salary adjustment of 1.2% per annum over
the same period, the differential (or shortfall) for the Organisation
in terms of its revenues will total €22 million.
5. In his report on the “State of democracy, human rights and
the rule of law in Europe”, published in May 2014, Secretary General
Jagland listed the Organisation's future priorities in the face
of a crisis of a kind unprecedented since the end of the Cold War.
It can be observed that serious violations of human rights are on
the increase all over Europe, a situation exacerbated by the economic
crisis and growing inequality. The wide-ranging reform process of
recent years is intended to make the Organisation more responsive
to the challenges facing Europe; nonetheless its effectiveness can
be maintained only if the member States' political and financial
commitment is guaranteed. This is the key strategic issue for the
Council of Europe in the coming years.
2 Audit
of the 2012 and 2013 accounts
6. The Council of Europe's budgetary management accounts
and consolidated financial statements for 2012 and 2013 were audited
by the French Cour des Comptes, as external auditor, which concluded
that these accounts and consolidated financial statements, which
had been prepared and presented in accordance with IPSAS,
Note gave a true and
fair view of the Council of Europe's financial situation. The external
auditor was accordingly able to issue an unqualified opinion on
the Organisation's accounts.
7. Staff expenses continue to represent a significant share of
operational expenditure (72.6% in 2012, 72.2% in 2013). The slight
decrease noted shows that the Secretary General's measures to stabilise
staff expenses are beginning to have an impact. Moreover, the general
budget surplus stood at €3.21 million in 2012 and €2.96 million
in 2013. The Council of Europe also sold a building (the “B” building)
to the European Parliament for an amount of €6.7 million, part of
which (€2.5 million) was paid into the Pension Reserve Fund as an
exceptional contribution, and the remainder (€4.2 million) was used
to reduce member States' obligatory contributions (by €1.9 million
in 2012 and €2.3 million in 2013).
8. Lastly, the Cour des Comptes also carried out a number of
performance audits on various sectors of the Secretariat General.
The three performance audits implemented in 2012 concerned the reorganisation
of the Secretariat, communication policy and expenditure and the
Department for the Execution of Judgments. In 2013, the external
auditors carried out a performance audit of the Council of Europe
Liaison Office in Brussels and an overall review of the implementation
of all the recommendations they had made since 2009.
9. During their mandate (2009-2013) the external auditors had
made 86 recommendations concerning different aspects of the Organisation's
functioning (22 relating to the audit of the financial statements
and 64 to the performance audits). They noted with satisfaction
that the vast majority of these recommendations had been acted upon.
By 2013, only two out of all the recommendations had not been implemented,
and 10 were in the course of being implemented.
3 2013
10. In 2013, the Secretary General of the Council of
Europe proposed a major reform of the Organisation's employment
policy aimed at increasing the recruitment of staff under fixed-term
contracts issued for a renewable five-year term. This type of contract
is intended to permit the Organisation to respond to changes in its
staffing needs, in particular for activities financed with extrabudgetary
resources. Other schemes will also be implemented, for example the
“junior professionals” programme, modelled on the young lawyers
scheme at the European Court of Human Rights.
11. The other key decision by the Committee of Ministers concerned
the application of the principle of zero nominal growth to the total
of member States' contributions to the Ordinary Budget in the 2014-2015
biennium. The Committee of Ministers also appointed a new external
auditor for the Organisation, the Polish Supreme Audit Office (Najwyższa
Izba Kontroli – NIK), for a five-year term with effect from the
financial year beginning on 1 January 2014.
12. In the wake of the Brighton Declaration (April 2012), the
efforts made to reinforce the effectiveness of the system of the
European Convention on Human Rights (ETS No. 5) at the European
and national levels led to the signature, in 2013, of Protocols
Nos. 15 and 16 (CETS Nos. 213 and 214) amending the Convention.
13. Three conferences of specialised ministers were also held
in 2013: the 10th Council of Europe Conference of Ministers of Culture
(15 and 16 April 2013, Moscow, Russian Federation), the 24th session
of the Standing Conference of Ministers of Education (26 and 27
April 2013, Helsinki, Finland) and the first Council of Europe Conference
of Ministers responsible for Media and the Information Society (7
and 8 November 2013, Belgrade, Serbia).
14. The Council of Europe also conducted multi-disciplinary and
transversal activities to combat organised crime, cybercrime, trafficking
in human beings, terrorism and counterfeiting of medical products.
It adopted and promoted Europe-wide, mutually reinforcing standards
in the criminal justice field and in other legislative spheres.
Regarding cybercrime, mention can be made of the establishment of
a Council of Europe Programme Office on Cybercrime in Bucharest.
15. Lastly, the holding of a new-format World Forum for Democracy
in Strasbourg made it possible to bring together a broad range of
targeted contributions and to hold substantive debates. However,
while the Forum was well received by the individual participants
and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the governments, European
institutions and global agencies were more reserved.
16. The Assembly itself continued to give a new impetus to the
political action of the Council of Europe. It received visits by
a number of leading political personalities (in particular the President
of Germany, Joachim Gauck, the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan,
and the President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili) and debated many
reports, including on the honouring of obligations and commitments
by certain member States (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria and the
Republic of Moldova). It also awarded the first Václav Havel Human Rights
Prize to Mr Ales Bialiatski of Belarus.
4 2014
17. The main event to leave its mark on 2014 was, without
doubt, the situation in Ukraine. The Committee of Ministers, the
Parliamentary Assembly and the Secretary General were all very involved
in this matter. For example, the Assembly signalled its disagreement
with the policy of the Russian Federation, particularly the annexation
of Crimea, by taking sanctions against the Russian parliamentary
delegation, depriving it of certain rights for 2014. The Secretary
General, for his part, set up an International Advisory Panel on
Ukraine, whose task it was to ensure that the investigations into
the violent incidents which had taken place from 30 November 2013
onwards in Ukraine met all the requirements of the European Convention
on Human Rights and the Court’s case law, and devised a series of
immediate measures to complement the 2011-2014 Action Plan for Ukraine,
reflecting the changes in the country’s situation.
18. Among the other important events, it is worth noting the entry
into force on 1 August 2014 of the Council of Europe Convention
on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic
Violence (CETS No. 210, “Istanbul Convention”). This convention
would almost certainly not have come into force so quickly had it
not been for the mobilisation of the members of the Parliamentary
Assembly through a Parliamentary Network on Women Free from Violence,
managed by the secretariat of the Assembly’s Committee on Equality and
Non-Discrimination.
19. Two other conventions sponsored by the Assembly were adopted
by the Committee of Ministers, namely the Council of Europe Convention
on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions (CETS No. 215), a new agreement
which is a major step forward in safeguarding the integrity of sport
and sports ethics and has been open for signature since 18 September
2014, and the Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human
Organs, which will soon be open for signature by the member States.
20. In this context, it is worth pointing to the existence of
the Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation
and Sexual Abuse (CETS No. 201, “Lanzarote Convention”), which the
Assembly actively supports through the work of its Network of Contact
Parliamentarians to stop sexual violence against children, and to
that of the Convention on the Counterfeiting of Medical Products
and Similar Crimes involving Threats to Public Health (CETS No.
211, “MEDICRIME Convention”), not yet in force but which a growing
number of member States are willing to sign.
21. As to the European Centre for Global Interdependence and Solidarity
(North-South Centre), it is regrettable that its survival has come
under threat with the withdrawal of two member States (Slovenia
and Italy),
Note which
will have a significant budgetary impact. The weakening of this
Council of Europe body, a true link between the North and the South
for which the Assembly called for support in
Recommendation 1893 (2009), is difficult to understand at a time when co-operation
between the Council of Europe and neighbouring Mediterranean countries,
particularly Tunisia and Morocco, is being stepped up.
22. In the human resources field, the main features of 2014 were
the entry into force of the revised contractual policy, whose aim
is to increase the Organisation’s staffing flexibility, and its
two corollaries, which are a moratorium on granting indefinite-term
contracts until the beginning of 2018 and the recruitment of staff on
five-year fixed-term contracts. Questions can be raised, nonetheless,
about the medium-term efficiency of such a policy, which could end
up weakening the pensions system of the Organisation’s permanent
staff by depriving it of stable resources for want of contributions
over the long term, and lead to a genuine loss in the attractiveness
of the Council of Europe as an employer.
23. As to the financial resources made available to the Council
of Europe, it is worth noting the increase in the overall volume
of extraordinary receipts, particularly as a result of the establishment
of closer links with the European Commission. In total, over €42
million in voluntary contributions were paid to the Council of Europe in
2014.
24. The Assembly, for its part, received €340 000 in voluntary
contributions in 2014 for all its activities (the parliamentary
dimension of the campaign for the promotion of the Istanbul Convention,
the One in Five Campaign to stop sexual violence against children,
the Europe Prize and the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize), along
with €84 000 in connection with emergency measures for Ukraine.
Thanks should be extended at this point to the member States and
institutions which provide regular support for the Assembly’s co-operation
activities.
25. Lastly, 2014 was a year of many elections, both internally,
with the election of Mr Thorbjørn Jagland for a second five-year
term, and at an international level, with the observation by the
Parliamentary Assembly of presidential and parliamentary elections
in six member or non-member States. The Assembly also awarded its second
Václav Havel Human Rights Prize to Mr Anar Mammadli (Azerbaijan).
5 Priorities for
2016-2017
26. The Council of Europe’s next biennial budgetary cycle
falls within a difficult context characterised both by public finance
consolidation in the member States and by a growing number of serious
human rights violations throughout Europe (particularly corruption,
terrorism, attacks on freedom of expression, hate speech and conflicts).
Yet, our Organisation has recognised expertise and authority, which
make it an indispensable partner in European co-operation.
27. However, while the member States consider that the Council
of Europe can provide a coherent response to the violations described
above, they also expect it, in exchange for their financing, to
be both efficient and effective, in the sense that the Organisation
offers real added value compared with its cost.
28. When it adopted the budget for the 2014-2015 biennium, the
Committee of Ministers imposed on the Organisation the principle
of ZNG, more specifically in member States' contributions. The Committee
of Ministers has renewed its commitment to ZNG for the 2016-2017
biennial budget. It applies to the general budget, but not to salaries,
which are managed at the overall level of the six co-ordinated organisations.
Note
29. Consequently, the main challenges which the Council of Europe
must face are of a budgetary and financial nature and are centred
on five main issues:
- the need
to finance the lack of budgetary resources caused by the ZNG policy,
which would lead to a shortfall of €22 million by 2021, a figure
which corresponds to the budgets of the Parliamentary Assembly and
the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities combined;
- the need to finance new activities generated by emerging
themes and deriving from new legal standards (anti-terrorism measures,
freedom of expression, corruption, Internet governance, etc.);
- the need to finance current and future investment needs.
The shortfall in investment is estimated at €34 million and current
capital expenditure appropriations, capped at €4.9 million per year,
are not enough to cover the needs, particularly in new information
technologies and in the upkeep of the Council of Europe’s buildings
in Strasbourg;
- the need to raise extrabudgetary resources. These have
increased by a third since 2010, but the administrative levies of
7% made by the Organisation on these contributions do not cover
all the costs charged to the Ordinary Budget for the support functions
relating to the activities;
- the need to operate with flexibility in a constrained
budget environment.
30. Given the growing difficulties, budgetary flexibility measures
are needed. In its Opinions on the budgets and priorities of the
Council of Europe,
Note the Assembly proposed that the unspent
balance at a financial year end should not be returned to the member
States but be left at the Organisation's disposal and placed in
a reserve account. Moreover, in
Opinion 281 (2011) on budgets and priorities of the Council of Europe for
the financial years 2012-2013, the Assembly also asked that it should
be possible to carry forward any unspent appropriations without
restriction from one year to the next. These suggestions by the
Assembly were rejected by the Committee of Ministers.
31. Against this background, the Committee of Ministers asked
the Secretary General to draw up proposals on the long-term budgetary
sustainability and efficiency of the Organisation in the context
of his reform process.
32. The action planned or already taken by the Secretary General
to meet the Committee of Ministers’ demands is centred on two requirements:
- The need to increase budgetary
flexibility by several means:
- the
establishment of an Emergency Fund to respond to emerging crisis
situations and any unplanned event requiring rapid action and funding;
- the carrying forward of unspent appropriations from one
year to the next within the biennial budget (see above);
- the use of cash resources as an internal loan facility
to finance investment projects (this principle has been applied
in the past to finance voluntary staff redundancy schemes);
- an innovative strategy to finance investment needs through
the creation of an Investment Fund;
- the establishment of a “Headquarters Utilisation Fund”
based on the facilities set up by other international organisations
(such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO)).
- The need to increase the long-term efficiency and effectiveness
of the Council of Europe, in particular:
- its organisational performance (as already initiated through
the rationalisation of governmental structures, the review of Council
of Europe conventions, the establishment of the Office of the Directorate
General of Programmes in charge of overall planning and co-ordination
of co-operation activities financed with extrabudgetary resources,
and an orientation towards results);
- its governance and organisational structures (better co-ordination
between institutions and restructuring of the Secretariat). In this
respect, it should be noted that the Assembly has already satisfied
this requirement by means of a reform in 2011;
- its human capital (the right people and the right competences)
and cost containment (rationalisation of operational spending and
control of the wage bill).
33. During his first term of office, Secretary General
Jagland, already implemented a large number of reforms intended
to enhance the Council of Europe’s efficiency and effectiveness.
Most of the organisational reforms have been completed; the challenge
now is to gauge the efficiency of the Council of Europe’s activities.
34. Although the budgetary situation for 2016-2017 is tight, there
are positive signs nonetheless which could result in a loosening
of the financial stranglehold in which the Council of Europe finds
itself. Through a letter from its foreign minister, Turkey has expressed
the desire to become the sixth major contributor to the Ordinary Budget,
on the same footing as the five current ones.
Note At the
same time, a motion for recommendation was tabled by Assembly members
to increase the number of representatives of the Turkish Parliament
in the Parliamentary Assembly to 18 and to make Turkish one of the
Assembly’s working languages.
35. If Turkey becomes a major contributor to the Ordinary Budget
from 1 January 2016 onwards, its contribution will represent a windfall
of some €20 million for the Council of Europe, taking all the budgets together.
This increase would allow the Organisation to face the 2016-2017
biennium with more equanimity.
36. It remains to be seen, however, whether the Committee of Ministers
will formally accept Turkey’s request to become a major contributor
to the Ordinary Budget and whether it will decide to maintain the
current level of contributions of all the member States, including
the current major contributors. We know already that some States
would like to impose a freeze of the upper limit on the Ordinary
Budget for the 2016-2017 biennium. If a majority of member States
were in favour of this, it is almost certain that Turkey would no
longer want to become a major contributor to the Ordinary Budget.
37. The member States might also take this opportunity to review
the amounts of some of the minimum scales applied to the Ordinary
Budget, as the Assembly suggested in
Recommendation 1812 (2007) on the political dimension of the Council of Europe
budget. In its report on “Guaranteeing the authority and effectiveness
of the European Convention on Human Right” (
Doc. 12811), the rapporteur, Ms Marieluise Bemelmans-Videc, indicated
an estimate of €333 667
Note as the annual cost to the Council of
Europe’s budget of employing a judge at the European Court of Human
Rights, which is more than the annual contribution made by 15 member
States.
Note
38. If we turn now to the activities and priorities for 2016-2017,
in his Statutory Declaration following his re-election and his speech
to the Assembly on 29 January 2015, the Secretary General set out
the main lines of his strategic vision
Note and his
action for the forthcoming months:
- strengthening the European Court of Human Rights and the
principle of shared responsibility with the Council of Europe bodies
active in this field (institutional organs such as the Parliamentary
Assembly, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, the Commissioner
for Human Rights and other standard-setting mechanisms of the Council
of Europe);
- reinforcing co-operation with the member States;
- upholding democratic principles;
- enhancing assistance to neighbouring countries;
- strengthening the European Social Charter (revised) (ETS
No. 163);
- strengthening cohesion between the Secretary General and
the statutory organs, particularly the Parliamentary Assembly;
- increasing the Council of Europe’s operational capacity.
39. However, the main topical theme, particularly after the attacks
in Paris and Copenhagen at the beginning of this year, is probably
the fight against terrorism, radicalisation and extremism. The Council
of Europe has legal instruments to combat this scourge, focusing
on three main areas:
- strengthening
legal action against terrorism through the legal arsenal which the
Organisation already possesses or is in the process of building
up through its conventions against terrorismNote and
its intergovernmental committees (such as the Committee of Experts
on Terrorism, CODEXTER);
- safeguarding fundamental values through existing legal
instruments and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights;
- tackling the causes of terrorism through cultural dialogue
or the No Hate Speech Movement and tangible measures in the fields
of education, prisons and the Internet to combat radicalisation.
40. The Assembly fully supports these three areas of action and
has already acted at its own level by establishing, in particular,
a network of 39 parliamentarians, inspired by the No Hate Speech
Movement, called the No Hate Parliamentary Alliance. The network
will work under the responsibility of the Committee on Equality
and Non-Discrimination and its aim is to campaign against racism,
hatred and intolerance, in co-operation with their national parliaments,
at national and European level.
41. All of our activities must, moreover, go hand in hand with
the creation of a coherent Europe-wide system of human rights protection
and reinforced co-operation with member States to combat terrorism,
while ensuring that they do not adopt measures which conflict with
the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights and the
Court’s case law. As a result, it is important to continue negotiations
with the European Union bodies to enable the European Union to accede
to the Convention.
Note
