Denmark and Italy – flanked by other migration hardliners – have gone public with a bold call to rethink the European Court of Human Rights, confirming Euractiv’s earlier reports.
The open letter, unveiled on Thursday during Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen’s visit to Giorgia Meloni, urges a political debate on how the Court interprets the European Convention on Human Rights, especially on sensitive issues like migration.
The text is almost identical to the draft first reported by Euractiv earlier this month.
“We should have more room nationally to decide on when to expel criminal foreign nationals,” the letter states, warning that, in the past, the Court has stretched the Convention beyond its original intent, upsetting the balance of protected interests.
Backed by Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, and the Czech Republic, the push cuts across political as well as national lines.
“We come from very different countries (..) and yet we’ve built a strong partnership,” Frederiksen said at the joint press conference.
“What was once right might not be the answer of tomorrow,” the letter adds.
The Strasbourg-based Court enforces the Convention across 46 Council of Europe members.
Italy and Denmark have been spearheading a series of migration-focused pre-summits meetings leading up to recent EU leader summits in Brussels – a group that includes several co-signatories of the letter.
Sweden and the Netherlands, normally present at these migration-hardliner get-togethers, did not co-sign it.
The letter demands “more room” to decide on expelling criminal foreign nationals, words echoed by the Danish prime minister during the press conference in Rome. “We need to have room for manoeuvre to decide who can stay in our countries, that’s why we wrote this letter”.
The leaders also stress the need for effective action against hostile states that seek to turn European values and rights against EU countries, such as by weaponising migration at our borders.
Meloni doubled down on the need for innovative solutions, also pointing to the Italy-Albania migration deal as proof of action. “We have to be brave, we have to think in a new way, and describe the situation as it is.”
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