Check against delivery

Speech by Alain Berset, Secretary General of the Council of Europe

Minister Bolkvadze,
Ambassadors,
Colleagues, and all our Georgian friends,

We gather shortly after your National Day, but some anniversaries are worth honouring beyond the date itself, and Georgia’s is one of them.

We will raise a glass to it shortly. A fitting moment to remember that Georgians have been making wine for eight thousand years. Some things you do not need a treaty to belong to.

***

More seriously, one hundred and eight years ago, the Democratic Republic of Georgia was among the very first social democracies in Europe.

A republic where women could not only vote, but stand for election to parliament.

Where checks and balances guarded human dignity and the freedoms of every citizen.

***

That first Georgian republic was founded on the very values the Council of Europe would one day be built to defend.

Yet international law was as young as the republic.

Too young to save it. Georgia fell to the aggression of a larger neighbour.

This resonates with us today, in this moment of rupture and uncertainty.

***

It took 70 years for Georgia to reclaim its independence and rejoin the European family.

It was here, in this House, in 1999, that Georgia’s late Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania said: “I am Georgian, therefore I am European.”

***

To be European is more than geography.

We are European because we choose law over force. Right over might.

We are European because we share a common legal space.

The Council of Europe has built it over more than seventy years, around a Convention, a Court, and a system of standards and monitoring, across 46 countries.

This legal order is not imposed on states from above. It grows within national law itself.

Georgia made that choice. That is where Europe’s power comes from.

***

The Council of Europe has stood by Georgia at every stage of its transformation.

For its sovereignty. For its territorial integrity, including through my consolidated report on the regions of Abkhazia and Tskhinvali.

It is precisely because we stand with Georgia that I speak frankly.

Security without democracy is neither sustainable nor truly secure.

No threat, real or perceived, is a reason to narrow democracy. It is the reason to protect it.

***

A century ago, Georgians built a republic ahead of its time.

The work of democracy is never finished.
Georgia was one of my first visits as Secretary General, at a difficult moment, by choice.

The Council of Europe will continue that work with Georgia. For its citizens, and for democratic security across Europe.

***

Georgia once spoke for all of us, here, in this house: I am Georgian, therefore I am European.

Today, we say it back. We are European, therefore we are Georgian.

Gmadlobt. [gmad-lopte]

###