European Review

Table of Contents - July 2012 - Volume 20, Issue 03  

Citizenship, Bureaucracy and Entrepreneurship

Uniting Europe: The Council of Europe's Unfinished Mission

Klaus Brummera1

a1 University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Institute for Political Science, Kochstr. 4, 91054 Erlangen, Germany. Email: Klaus.Brummer@polwiss.phil.uni-erlangen.de

Abstract

The Council of Europe (CoE) is an essential building block of the European integration process. However, the organisation is confronted with fundamental challenges relating to the erosion of its core principles, the overload of the ECHR system and the expansion of the European Union. These developments put the CoE's future in jeopardy. Yet, there are three reasons why the organisation should have a future: the CoE has the potential to become the key forum for dialogue between Europe and Russia, it could make further contributions to a European stability policy, and it could continue to build a pan-European legal space.