Check against delivery

Minister, ladies and gentlemen,

It is a privilege to be here and a pleasure to see so many of you who attended last night’s event marking the 5th anniversary of our Cybercrime Programme Office here in Bucharest.

Today, the Council of Europe’s Secretary General is in Helsinki speaking at a high level conference about our approach to the issues raised by Artificial Intelligence, while I am here to do the same on cybercrime.

This coincidence of events highlights the way in which new challenges are emerging in the field of human rights, democracy and the rule of law – and our Organisation’s determination to keep up with the pace of change, and find new ways to protect our core values for the benefit of our member states – and beyond.

After all, while our legal instruments are made in Europe, many are also designed for use in the wider world.

This is true, for example, of our Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, our Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions, and our Convention on the Counterfeiting of Medical Products.

All of these – and many more – are used by countries outside the Council of Europe as well as our member states, and this is something that we will continue.

I want to thank Romania, as the Presidency of the EU Council, for co-organising this important conference with the Council of Europe.

This is testament to the close and ongoing co-operation on cybercrime between our two organisations.

The Council of Europe’s Budapest Convention is the leading international treaty on cybercrime, and it benefits greatly from the political support provided by the European Union.

The EU also co-funds a range of our joint capacity-building projects in this area, and the Council of Europe’s Cybercrime Convention Committee helps the EU to develop new innovations such as their current work on the E-evidence Regulation and Directive.

This is a strong partnership which benefits both parties and the people they represent.

The same is true for the Council of Europe and Romania’s co-operation on these matters.

Minister, your country was one of the first parties to the Budapest Convention;

And your Ministry of Justice has played a leading role in the Cybercrime Convention Committee over the past decade – including your current chairmanship;

As a result, the Romanian Prosecution Office on Organised Crime and Terrorism and the Romanian National Police have been sharing their operational experience internationally for some 15 years.

So it is right and fitting that the Council of Europe’s Cybercrime Programme Office – one of the world’s leading centres for capacity-building on this topic – is situated here in Bucharest, and that this city is hosting this important event.

But why is it so important?

Because the problem of cybercrime is not going away; rather, it is evolving and manifesting in new and chilling ways.

We have long known the danger it poses to human rights and the rule of law:

The theft of millions of people’s personal data; cyber violence, including sexual violence against children; the sale of illicit and counterfeit goods – to cite just three examples.

But we are all now aware of the direct threat that cybercrime constitutes for democracy too:

Computers used in election campaigns being hacked and information stolen for use in disinformation campaigns; voter databases being compromised; election results being manipulated.

Electoral interference – even the suspicion of electoral interference – undermines trust in our democratic systems.

So there is no choice here: we must tackle these threats now.

How can this best be done?

We must continue of course to make the best possible use of our existing tools.

The Budapest Convention remains the guide for domestic legislation and the framework for international co-operation for all offences involving electronic evidence.

With 62 states parties, 94 UN Member States adopting legislation that is broadly in line with the treaty, and more than 140 in total having used it as a prime reference, the terms of the Budapest Convention reach far and wide.

Every day, somewhere in the world, law enforcement agencies are co-operating to fight cybercrime on this basis.

Every week, our office here in Bucharest is using the Convention’s terms to assist countries around the world – countries such as Niger, Guatemala, Kenya – in strengthening their legislation.

And, on a continuous basis, our rich variety of capacity-building initiatives per year are providing knowledge, training and expertise to governments and judges, prosecutors and police, and promoting co-operation at all levels.

This is invaluable, but it is not enough.

The challenges posed by cybercrime and e-evidence are becoming increasingly complex, and we need additional solutions: solutions that fight the crime in question, while themselves fully upholding individuals’ human rights and the rule of law.

That is why our Cybercrime Convention Committee decided to negotiate an additional Protocol to the treaty.

It aims to make mutual legal assistance more efficient, permit direct co-operation with service providers in other jurisdictions, and provide a framework for extending cross-border searches – with data protection and other safeguards built in.

In short, this will make us more agile in the fight against cybercrime. We continue to discuss these often tricky issues with the European Union in order that the end product is one that benefits EU and non-EU member states alike. I count on the Romanian presidency of the EU Council for its work to ensure consistency between the efforts of both organisations.

But given the complexity of these issues, and the fast-changing nature of the modern world, the thinking must not stop.

We are privileged to have here a large, diverse and talented group of experts – some of you from government, others from the private sector.

You are the perfect combination to consider the task at hand.

Today and tomorrow you will have the opportunity to examine the full extent of the threat cybercrime poses to human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

You will examine the specific challenges for our criminal justice systems, the reconciliation of security and fundamental rights, and whether we can make better use of the tools at our collective disposal:

Namely, the Budapest Convention and its future Second Protocol, the e-evidence proposals from the EU and the capacity-building efforts of the Council of Europe in its member states.

Cybercrime is one of the great challenges of our era.

Co-operation is required to pool our talents and rise to the challenge.

And I look forward to hearing about the outcomes of your discussions and the co-operation that this Conference will facilitate.