“Democratic Security For Ukraine”: Berset Presents Council Of Europe Action Plan For 2027-2030

29.09.2026, 18:04 uatv.ua

Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset presented the organization’s new “Democratic Security for Ukraine” Action Plan for 2027-2030 at a “Voices from Ukraine” event held on the margins of PACE’s autumn session in Strasbourg, framing the four-year plan as a deliberate counterweight to Russia’s strategy of attacking Ukraine’s ability to think beyond the present day, UATV English reports.

Berset opened his remarks by referencing the Russian drone strike that hit Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv the previous afternoon, killing staff at the historic institution.

“An Academy of Sciences works in decades. Ukraine is being attacked by a country that wants it to think in days. And the Council of Europe action plan I am presenting today runs to the end of this decade. Everything in it is built for the long term — this is important to underline — so that no afternoon can take it away,” Berset said.

Berset stressed that the plan does not replace military assistance to Ukraine, acknowledging the country’s immediate need for weapons and air defense.

“It is a question of survival, and it is also why Europe is rearming. Democratic security is what makes every other form of security sustainable and accountable, and no peace in Ukraine will hold without it,” Berset said.

He argued that security in the traditional sense — defense, borders, energy, technology — means little unless courts function, parliaments retain real decision-making power, and people have access to trustworthy information, calling this democratic security a defense against cyberattacks, disinformation, and terrorism as much as a protection of institutions and rights.

“Democratic security is not the reduction of freedoms in the name of protecting them,” he said.

Berset said the plan is structured around four interlocking areas: accountability through evidence-based investigations of war crimes; social inclusion, including protection of minorities and women, support for veterans, and the return of Ukrainian children; strengthening democratic institutions, local governance, and information integrity; and independent justice, including the fight against corruption. He said the plan is grounded in Council of Europe conventions, the recommendations of its monitoring bodies, and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights — which he noted remains the only international court currently ruling on human rights violations stemming from Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Around that court, Berset said, the Council of Europe has built mechanisms that did not previously exist: a Register of Damage to record losses, a Claims Commission to convert them into compensation, and a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression.

The presentation coincided with discussions at PACE on the need for coherent European policies for veterans and systemic support for Ukrainian soldiers disabled by the war, with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and PACE President Petra Bayr meeting with Ukrainian war veterans in Strasbourg. Berset also reiterated the Council of Europe’s political engagement on minority rights in Transcarpathia, where the organization has offered its good offices to the Ukrainian and Hungarian ombudspersons, as well as its work on the situation of Ukrainian children and people living under occupation.

Berset said he raised Ukraine in every meeting held during recent visits to the UN General Assembly and Washington, including with members of the U.S. Congress, and noted that accountability was central to those discussions. He said the Council of Europe’s new permanent observer office to the United Nations, which he opened alongside Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, will continue this political work.

Berset traced the idea of democratic security back to the Council of Europe’s first summit of heads of state and government in Vienna in 1993, when European leaders identified territorial ambitions, aggressive nationalism, and spheres of influence as dangers the continent had left behind.

“All three are back, and they are operating now in Ukraine and beyond. So the concept has not changed. The threats it was written against have returned. Everything we do has to answer them as they are today,” Berset said.

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