At the 4th Council of Europe Summit (Reykjavík, 16-17 May 2023), the Heads of State and Government, in their final declaration - the Reykjavík Declaration - United around our values - affirmed that human rights and the environment are intertwined and that a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is integral to the full enjoyment of human rights by present and future generations.

The leaders of the 46 Member States also stressed the urgency of additional efforts to protect the environment, as well as to counter the impact of the triple planetary crisis of pollution, climate change and loss of biodiversity on human rights, democracy and the rule of law. In this context, particular importance has been attached to the role that the Council of Europe may play as an Organisation working not only in the area of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, but with a long-standing and widely acknowledged track record in protecting the environment and environmentally friendly landscape management, among others.

In this respect, Appendix V of the Reykjavík Declaration - The Council of Europe and the Environment refers explicitly to the Council of Europe Landscape Convention.

At the Summit, the Heads of State and Government launched the Reykjavík Process. This process aims to make the environment a visible priority for the Council of Europe. Its main objective is to focus and strengthen the Organisation's work on aspects of the environment linked to human rights. This objective includes landscape, one of the most human aspects of the environment.

These developments have enabled the Secretariat General of the Council of Europe to reorganise its structures with a view to relaunching cooperation activities between the Parties to the Convention. In this context, as of 2 January 2024, the secretariat of the Convention has been transferred from the Directorate-General for Democracy and Human Dignity (DG-II) to the Directorate-General for Human Rights and the Rule of Law (DG-I), within a new Department for the Reykjavík Process and the Environment, in the framework of a new Directorate responsible for social rights, health and the environment.

On the same date, a new Executive Secretary of the Convention was appointed.