Stockholm – ESI presentation on corruption in the Council of Europe and the end of Caviar Diplomacy

27 September 2017
Presentation by Gerald Knaus on corruption in the Council of Europe. Video: Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation

On 27 September, ESI's Gerald Knaus gave a presentation at the Jarl Hjalmarson Foundation in Stockholm.

For over a decade, authoritarian governments have tried to capture Europe's oldest human rights institution, the Council of Europe, through bribes and KGB-tactics. The aim has been to neutralize the international human rights movement's strategy of "naming and shaming" those who falsifies elections and violates basic human rights.

This trend reached its peak when the President of the Council's Parliamentary Assembly earlier this year flew into Damascus on a Russian jet, as part of a delegation led by a leading member of Russia's far-right party. Their agenda included a meeting with president Bashar al-Assad and took place two weeks before a sarin gas attack in Syria's Idlib provice.

A coalition of politicians, prosecutors, journalists and civil society actors are now fighting back and an unprecedented independent investigation has been launched to look into the corruption.

Gerald Knaus, Chairman of the European Stability Initiative, and Tobias Billström, Deputy Chairman of the Swedish Delegation to the Council of Europe, presented the current state of affairs in the Council of Europe and the struggle for a solid human rights regime in Europe.