Council of Europe Chief Rejects Calls to Make ECHR More Flexible on Immigration

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is leading calls for a change in EU law to make it easier to deport criminal foreign nationals.

Illegal immigrants from various detention centers across Italy are escorted by police as they disembark an Italian Navy vessel at the port of Shengjin, Albania, on April 11, 2025. Adnan Beci/AFP via Getty Images

The Council of Europe’s secretary-general, Alain Berset, has rejected calls from EU leaders to make the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) more flexible on immigration.

Nine EU countries signed an open letter regarding immigration on May 22, calling for the ECHR to be reinterpreted because it is limiting their “ability to make political decisions” in their “own democracies.”

On May 24, Berset said in a statement that courts must not be weaponized for political gain.

The Council of Europe was established in 1949 to promote democracy, protect human rights, and uphold the rule of law in Europe. It also monitors member states’ progress in adhering to its human rights standards.

Its best-known convention is the ECHR. The European Court of Human Rights oversees how it is implemented.

The letter, organized by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Danish counterpart, Mette Frederiksen, and co-signed by leaders such as Poland’s Donald Tusk, said that the court “posed too many limitations on the states’ ability to decide whom to expel from their territories” in terms of the deportation of criminal foreign nationals.

Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania also signed the letter requesting “a new and open minded conversation about the interpretation” of the ECHR.

The letter said the scope has extended “too far as compared with the original intentions behind the Convention, thus shifting the balance between the interests which should be protected.”

Berset dismissed the letter and said that “debate is healthy, but politicizing the Court is not.”

“Institutions that protect fundamental rights cannot bend to political cycles,” he said. “If they do, we risk eroding the very stability they were built to ensure. The Court must not be weaponized—neither against governments, nor by them.”

Europe is hardening its attitude to illegal immigration and is also starting to enact broader plans to shift asylum processing offshore.

Illegal immigrants are entering the EU primarily via Mediterranean sea crossings from North Africa and by overland routes through Poland and the Balkans, according to data from Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.

Illegal crossings are usually arranged by organized criminal networks and smugglers.

Under pressure from parties with strong anti-illegal immigration platforms, establishment political parties have steadily abandoned their previous immigration stances and supported the reintroduction of internal border controls in the free-movement Schengen Area.

Under the EU’s Pact on Migration and Asylum, member states are looking to strike agreements with non-EU states to handle asylum claims extraterritorially, potentially setting up processing centers in North Africa or beyond.

On May 20, the EU Commission proposed to change rules to remove the longstanding requirement that meaningful links have to exist between asylum seekers and third countries.

While no third countries have been chosen yet, in 2024, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen suggested striking deals with non-EU countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Senegal, and Mali.

In April, Italy became the first EU state to successfully send illegal immigrants beyond the bloc’s borders, after its first three attempts were blocked by national and European courts.

Meloni’s bid to divert sea arrivals from North Africa to Albania was blocked by courts three times after efforts began in October 2024.

By adding Albania to its own safe third-country list and rebranding detention centers as “repatriation hubs,” Italy bypassed a European Court of Justice ban.

On April 14, Italy sent 40 illegal immigrants to the Italian-run centers in Albania.