The Council of Europe as an Actor in the Digital Age: Past Achievements, Future Perspectives

The Council of Europe was founded after the Second World War in 1949 and has its main establishment in Strasbourg, France. Despite its manifold successes in the areas of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in the subsequent decades, the ‘ever closer’ integration of the European Union combined with other international developments are challenging the setup and position of this international organization in the 21st century. In 2018, the future of the Council of Europe was endangered by budgetary constraints which result from growing political tensions between the member states of the European Union and important member states of the organization such as the Russian Federation, Turkey, and others. Despite these challenges, the Council of Europe remains an organization with the potential for the development of unique legal frameworks. While the European Union is limited to 28 (soon possibly 27) member states with approximately 500 million inhabitants, the Strasbourg organization has 47 member states with approximately 820 million inhabitants. Hence, despite the fact that the European Union might be capable of supranational legislative acts as enshrined in Art. 288 TFEU, any harmonization of the regulatory framework through the Council of Europe has a wider territorial, personal, and arguably cultural scope.