Robin Wilson: Secretary general, we live in a world of soaraway oligarchic wealth on the one hand and of labour market precarity on the other. How can the idea that every citizen should enjoy equal social rights, as embodied in the European Social Charter, provide a centripedal force for social cohesion rather than polarisation?

Alain Berset: We must always recall the fact that there is no stability and economic development in an unstable world. We have to have social rights, really implemented, and to have equal access as much as possible for all people to what they need. Without this access, without social rights, societies are unstable and instability in societies is not helping stability in countries.

It’s one element; it’s not everything clearly. We have also huge geopolitical issues. We have huge pressure on democratic values and the rule of law. But if we add to this inequalities, if we accept without correcting this development of inequalities, we are just adding one additional element bringing societies into major problems. That’s why what we are doing here is really part of more complex work where with social rights we can bring a strong contribution. It is one among others—it’s not the only thing. But this strong contribution is underlining the importance of equal access to social rights and the importance of those elements in stabilising society.

Robin Wilson: You mentioned in passing there democracy and the rule of law. We also inhabit an era of what political scientists have called ‘democratic backsliding’. At the fourth summit of the Council of Europe in Reykjavík in May 2023, heads of state and government representing the 46 member states declared: ‘Social justice is crucial for democratic stability and security’. So just what is the connection between social rights and stable democracy? Where does the Council of Europe’s ‘New Democratic Pact for Europe’—which suggests that social inequalities ‘erode confidence in what democracy can deliver’—come in?

Alain Berset: What was said in Reykjavik was not just words, not just a slogan. Yes, we are facing quite strong backsliding in democracy almost everywhere, and we have different reasons for it. One of the causes is the huge sequence of crises that we have been witnessing since the financial crisis. Crises reinforcing each other—what I call a perfect storm. We had a pandemic, we have had war in Ukraine since 2014 and the full-scale invasion since 2022, we have technological changes. What does it mean to have generative AI?—we will very soon not be able to find out which videos are fake and which are real. What does this mean for information and for the functioning of democracy?

That’s a huge threat that we have. And the New Democratic Pact is exactly about this: creating again good conditions for the positive development of democracy. That does not mean returning to the old world—it has disappeared. A world without social media, without AI, is no longer available. The question is how to adapt to make sure that democratic processes can have a positive development in this new context.

In this sequence of crises, this huge instability is creating inequalities—strongly. I was wrong when I thought in 2008 that the financial crisis was primarily a thing for banks. The banks were saved, by states by the way, creating huge debt. And then came, to follow the consequences, the explosion of inequalities. The real people paid the consequences of this. And this must encourage us to act—the New Democratic Pact for Europe, yes, but then also to integrate all the elements of access and social rights. And the Social Charter is really the strong compass in this context. Supporting the New Democratic Pact for Europe includes also social rights and makes a link between democracy and the Social Charter.

We have seen for example that we have huge threats against lawyers. Lawyers are really important to make the institutions work. And that’s why we have now a new convention on the protection of lawyers. We are seeing that AI is a huge threat to democratic principles and is fuelling inequalities. We have a framework convention on AI, now open to signature, and we hope it will be in force very soon. We see also misinformation and foreign interference. Moldova is a very strong example of what this can mean, with the election of 2024 and then what Moldova did in 2025. We are developing a possible convention against misinformation and foreign interference.

Those texts, just to take those two examples, are part of the New Democratic Pact for Europe. The pact is not a revolution: it’s to take together all the elements we need to make sure that we have strong democracies in this new world and these strong democracies must include the workforce and social rights and the Social Charter. All the elements are like a compass, where we can work together on common ground among the 46 member states, because they join the conventions or because without joining the conventions they see that these are important in defining the way we can work. We need to accept the complexity and we must take all these elements together, because they are all elements of the same reality.

Robin Wilson: A further disturbing aspect of our times has been the exploitation of fault lines of ethnicity, nationality, religion and language by populist political forces demonising the Other. How can social rights strengthen social bridges to prevent societies disintegrating into conflict and war as in the nightmare of the 1930s?

Alain Berset: Maybe this is the moment where we should make the link between the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Social Charter, because we have different texts aiming at the same goal. That is to ensure that individuals have good access to what they need, to have positive development, to develop perspectives.

In Slovakia, for example, there is a labour shortage. And in Slovakia there was a programme where Roma people were integrated via developing skills. Integration in education systems, integration in training systems—where they had been excluded before, because of discrimination. Suddenly, everyone noted that here were extremely highly motivated people, talented people, and there were new possibilities for companies to have access to skilled people.

This is one concrete example. We have demographic difficulties everywhere in Europe, linked to inclusiveness and integration for all—seeing first of all that a human being is a human being. And this must be linked with access to rights, fundamental rights, social rights. It is one of the best and strongest way to make those bridges—accepting diversity as an enrichment for societies but being able also to make something strong with it.

We have a lot of different examples and I also want to mention in this context the Framework Convention on the Rights of National Minorities that we have at the Council of Europe. One more time, it’s not a miracle: it is just a text defining a commitment that we make together to have the best possible integration for minorities and to see that equal societies are more successful in the long term than unequal societies.

It’s just an economic reality—it makes sense. It is reasonable to do this not only because the first concern is respect, diversity and human dignity, but also because it makes sense from the economic point of view.

Robin Wilson: Well, just taking that economic issue, in the European Union in the current term, there has arguably been a major discursive shift from a focus on the Green Deal and implementing the European Pillar of Social Rights, characterising the last term, to one on economic ‘competitiveness’. This has been associated with calls for a deregulatory ‘simplification’, implying that social rights are a barrier to international economic success. What would you say to that claim?

Alain Berset: There is always a balance, but to trade social rights for economic prosperity doesn’t work in the long term. Really, no. This is exactly what I said: we know and it is experienced that equal societies are more successful than unequal societies. That remains a reality. It doesn’t mean that you will not find some elements where inequalities will help some companies who do their own thing and do not feel concerned by what is happening in the rest of the society. But for public authorities, for political bodies, they need to have a comprehensive approach: we need to see this collectively. That’s the first point.

The second point: there is not only this shift that you mentioned, but the shift that I see right now is a shift where we see more and more strong investments in defence, weapons, armaments. It’s legitimate, I see the point. But at the same time, it is not good and not sustainable in the long term to do this at the cost of social rights, education, or access to health.

We must be really careful, not for the short term—for today and tomorrow it’s okay—but, in the long term, to lose or to diminish investments in access to health and education, it’s a time-bomb. Because one full generation could maybe have less good access than today. And this will have consequences—not today, not next week, not in one year, but in five, ten, 15, 20 years, in one generation. And we are weakening the continent with this.

My message, additionally, is that by not investing in education, not investing in social rights, we are also weakening democracy, because we need to have well-educated and informed populations to have working democracies. If we have stronger armies in the future but weakened democracies, who will control the armies?

We need to have both. If we have a stronger investment, legitimately, in defence, that’s okay but we need to invest strongly in solutions and social rights, social partnership. That’s why we call it democratic security at the Council of Europe: if you think that democracy is just military democracy, it is not sustainable. The real security is democratic security, not just military security. And one more time, it’s related to the New Democratic Pact for Europe.

Robin Wilson: This High-Level Conference on Social Rights follows another in Vilnius in 2024. Signatories to the European Social Charter can treat it as a menu of options, in terms of how many of the repertoire of rights they agree to be bound by and whether they accept the collective complaints mechanism. How do you think the political will of member states to be more ambitious in their individual commitments can be secured?

Alain Berset: The whole Council of Europe system is built on political accountability for member states and political engagement. We don’t have international enforcement institutions to make sure that all the member states really implement what they are committed to. A good example here is the European Convention on Human Rights and the European Court of Human Rights. The court takes decisions and the execution of the decisions of the court is very high—more or less 80 per cent. It’s very high in comparison with other similar organisations. And why is that so? Not only because the country is committed to do this, but then for the follow-up you have friendly political pressure from all the states.

When a state, let’s say Switzerland, will have a negative decision of the court and need to implement or change something, if nothing would happen, then the other states will say: ‘Look, please, why are you not implementing this? There is a decision, we are all affected, but in this case we would be happy if you do this.’ And this system, this political encouragement to implement what all the parties are committed to, is an excellent example of how it works.

This political commitment is the same with the Social Charter. It’s not exactly the same system of implementation, but in both cases there is the need to have a political will and political support. It is the case for the court; it is also the case for the Social Charter and for the authorities, how the bodies make sure that it will be implemented.

We need to continue to work on this. It is easy to say, not so easy to implement because we are witnessing backsliding times—not only for democracy but also diverging forces are in action. We see it’s more complicated today than 15 years ago to make some progress. We see this everywhere. And it is also affecting the Social Charter and social rights. But that’s why it’s marvellous that we meet today, that we commit again to renew this commitment to the Social Charter.

My very last point is this: yes, countries are able to join and make some proviso: ‘Okay, we commit to the Social Charter but not to this point.’ And that’s a good thing. A conference like today allows us to make some progress on this. And we have positive developments in these days—countries announcing that they take back a proviso, so they are able to enlarge the application and implementation of the social charter.

These are good signals in difficult times. It shows that it is possible, not always so easy, but possible to have some slow progress, including in tough and difficult times.