The Council of Europe continues to be the protagonist of our column “Discovering the institutions in Europe”. After having entered into the DGI, we are now going to understand the functions and some of the departments of the DGII, the Directorate-General for Democracy.
Once again, it should be underlining the difficulty of summarising and understanding the mechanism of such a complicated and articulated organisation as the Council of Europe. We managed to collect three internal testimonies, which is why we will focus more on the departments of the interviewees than the others.
The Directorate-General for Democracy has the overall objective of “safeguarding and building genuine democracy” and to achieve this, it is committed to strengthening democratic institutions and citizens’ trust in them, building societies free of all forms of discrimination, and contributing to a constructive growth of young Europeans. DGII is both responsible for promoting standards in line with the Council of Europe’s general objectives and for monitoring and implementing them. In this framework, the intergovernmental committees play a key role for an open and consistent dialogue between all member states.
The organisational chart can give an idea of the structure of DGII: three major directorates, the Directorate for Democratic Participation, the Anti-Discrimination Department and the Directorate for Human Dignity, Equality and Governance, which are in turn composed of numerous departments.
We had the opportunity to meet Daniele Cangemi, Head of the Human Dignity and Gender Equality Department who gave us a clear overview of his department’s mandate, some of the programmes currently being implemented and the legal framework. The Department plays a central role in the fight against trafficking in human beings, for the promotion of gender equality and the fight against violence against women and domestic violence. The Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, better known as the Istanbul Convention, is the international treaty that lays the legal foundation for this area of interest of this directorate.
The department is also responsible for the monitoring (one of the three working methods of the Council of Europe) of the compliance of states parties both with the anti-trafficking Convention and the Istanbul Convention. For example, with regard to the latter, the department is currently completing the first round of evaluation of states parties to the convention. Two independent expert groups, respectively GRETA and GREVIO, are involved in this process and are in charge of producing country-based reports on the status of implementation of the two Conventions.
The department of the Human Dignity and Gender Equality also carries out consultations at intergovernmental level on gender equality issues, through the specific Gender Equality Commission. The current gender equality strategy (2018-2023) of the Council of Europe is implemented with discussion forums and reports, and the drafting of recommendations as appropriate, on the priorities of the strategy, such as the equal participation of women and man to public life, the protection of the rights of migrant women and a gender mainstreaming approach. As far as it concerns women’s rights, the department also works with UN Women on awareness-raising campaigns and visibility projects.
In this context, Cangemi explains, growing difficulties are emerging with the use of the term ‘gender’. Some countries, in fact, contest using this term, preferring to speak exclusively about “men and women”. This debate has been often the subject of legal disputes, especially in connection with the Istanbul Convention, as in the case of Bulgaria, a country that has not yet ratified the Convention following a decision of its Constitutional Court, of Turkey, where the President decided the withdrawal of the country from the Convention, for the first time for a Council of Europe human rights treaty, or Poland, where the debate is so heated that a withdrawal from of the Convention could be feared as well. Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldova, the United Kingdom, Ukraine and Russia are the other countries which have not yet ratified the Convention.
Trafficking in human beings for purposes of labour exploitation remains a little-known and unaddressed issue, on which the Helsinki Decisions of the Committee of Ministers, in 2019 gave a mandate to work. The GRETA committee has worked on the draft of a good practice guide and a set of recommendations, which have been transferred to the Committee of Ministers in view of further work.
We now turn to a core division of DGII, as responsible for connecting all its internal departments: the Central Coordination Division. We had the opportunity to discuss with the special coordinator of DGII, Malcolm Cox. A key aspect here is communication, both internal and external. The latter can be defined as the results of the communication of each department. However, compared to the DGI, DGII’s special coordinator deals with all internal and external aspects, whereas in the DGI there is a specific person responsible for each department. Cox and his colleagues also work on coordination aspects in DGII programmes monitoring.
Let us now turn to the Anti-Discrimination Department. It combats discrimination in all its forms, protects and promotes the rights of children, and combats sexual exploitation and child abuse. The Directorate also seeks to improve the integrity of sport, in particular through its unique conventions. Within the Directorate is the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI). The latter monitors racism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, intolerance and racial discrimination and advises governments. The programmes support inclusion and combat discrimination, tackle hate speech and ensure respect for the human rights of all Europeans, including the LGBT community and other vulnerable groups. Cultural diversity is another key theme of the directorate, with the Intercultural Cities Network supporting local authorities to manage and benefit from cultural diversity to build inclusive communities.
The rights of vulnerable people are at the heart of the Directorate’s policy development, monitoring and implementation. In particular, the Roma and Travellers sector focuses on the fight against violence and discrimination and access to justice. Education plays a central role as a means of knowledge to combat discrimination and hatred. For example, INSCHOOL is an inclusive education project that aims to implement a pilot education system for the integration of Roma children in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia. The project is developed on a practical level where experts in the field intervene directly in schools to tackle segregation and implement an inclusive methodology; on a political level it works to influence relevant institutional actors towards an inclusive society.
Children’s rights are another priority of the directorate and its specific division works on the protection of children’s rights in the digital world, migrant children, child-friendly justice and the elimination of all forms of violence against children.
Sport is a second field protected by the Directorate, in particular sports conventions addressing doping, match-fixing and security at sporting events combat serious threats to human rights and the integrity of sport. They are leading international legal references. Within this framework, the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Sport (EPAS) aims to promote the development of any sport whose benefits are far-reaching, and develops policies and standards, monitors them and helps with capacity-building and exchange of good practice.
Based on the European Cultural Convention, the Directorate for Democratic Participation enables European citizens to participate effectively in today’s diverse and complex democratic societies. It encourages active and responsible citizenship by empowering citizens to contribute and to develop a sense of ownership over the activities of decision-makers and institutions. It also contributes to strengthening the commitment of Member States in these areas.
Within the Directorate, the Department of Culture, Nature and Heritage supports access to culture for all, in its many and diverse forms, as fundamental to democratic, tolerant and inclusive societies. It promotes the sustainable and democratic management of Europe’s cultural and natural heritage, protecting Europe’s biodiversity for future generations. It also promotes cultural policies that address the challenges posed by the digitisation of culture.
The Youth Department gives young people access to their human rights – facilitating their autonomy and participation – and helps member states to develop the necessary youth policies. It supports young people who are active in civil society and works with them on how to combat discrimination and exclusion. Each year the European Youth Centres in Strasbourg and Budapest host more than 10,000 participants in a variety of activities and the European Youth Foundation provides more than €4 million to youth organisations.
The Platform to Promote the Protection of Journalism and the Safety of Journalists aims to improve the protection of journalists, to better address threats and violence against media professionals and to promote early warning mechanisms and response capacities within the Council of Europe. The platform enables the Council of Europe to be alerted in time, in a more systematic way and to take timely and coordinated action when necessary. It helps the organisation to identify trends and propose appropriate policy responses in the field of media freedom.
In addition, the Department of Education promotes inclusive and quality education for all. It facilitates the integration of refugees and migrants, including with tools to recognise their qualifications and to teach them the language of the host country. It works to combat cross-border and institutional fraud and corruption in education, particularly in higher education. For example, support for whole-school approaches aims to build democracy through education by providing materials for educators, parents and students.
Finally, an interesting aspect of the Council of Europe’s work is its delegation offices in the member countries. We discussed with the Yucel Erduran, project manager of the DGI, who before worked in Turkey for the delegation of the Council of the Europe. He explained that the national delegations carry out more targeted and technical work, having the expertise to know the system of the country they represent. As a result, it can be considered more political work because it aims to influence national institutions and their legislation, for a full respect of the standards of human rights. The delegations are in continuous dialogue with Strasbourg, transmitting to the respective departments the state of implementation of the projects, in order to always have common objectives and respecting the general mandate of the department and more generally of the Council of Europe.
