It begins with a handshake. Two women smile into the camera - as if nothing had happened. Mette Frederiksen in sky blue, Giorgia Meloni in the beige of innocence. But what this photo documents is no diplomatic courtesy visit. It is a milestone on the road back. Back to a time when human rights were not an obligation, but a bargaining chip. A regression, driven by nine EU states that are chipping away at the very foundation upon which Europe, after Auschwitz, Srebrenica, and Abu Ghraib, laboriously rebuilt itself: the European Convention on Human Rights.
That Alice Weidel celebrates this moment with fervor - one could almost have expected it. "Germany must support this important initiative," writes the AfD parliamentary leader. The mask no longer slips - it’s off. Human rights are in the way? Good, then let’s move them aside. As long as nothing stands in the way of the so-called “migration turnaround” - not Article 3, not the court in Strasbourg, not any moral obligation toward the Other. The far right shouts, and the center remains silent.
Because anyone looking closely will see: this initiative does not come only from the usual suspects. It’s not just Hungary and Poland, not just Orbán and his ilk. It’s Denmark - governed by Social Democrats. It’s Italy - led by a post-fascist party that has long become socially acceptable. It is a new alliance of the determined, whose goal is not protection, but the devaluation of protection. And the price? The inviolability of the human being.
The core of this new “review” is as cynical as it is transparent: they want the right to deport people - no matter where to. Even to states where torture is routine. To camps that reek of misery. To regimes that gas dissidents and stone homosexuals. And they want to do it all - without being held accountable by any court. Strasbourg, out of the picture. Human rights? Yes, but only if they don’t get in the way.
That the European Convention on Human Rights is not merely an ideal, but a binding legal norm, seems to have become the problem. It protects not only against tyrants, but also against populist knee-jerk reactions. And that is exactly why it is being targeted. Because in the new logic of power, it’s no longer about what is right, but about what is useful. Human rights - but only if they align with polling numbers.
It is a downward spiral with a dangerously accelerating dynamic. Those who say today that the ECHR is too strict, will say tomorrow that the Geneva Refugee Convention is outdated. And the day after? Perhaps asylum law becomes merely an “abuse vehicle,” press freedom “leftist activism,” the right to protest a national security threat. Step by step, we hollow out the liberal order - and pretend it’s progress.
These are not abstract debates. They affect real people: those fleeing Libyan torture chambers. Women in Afghanistan who can no longer walk to school. Dissidents in Belarus who disappear simply for speaking out. And Europe? Is now negotiating how much dignity they’re still entitled to. Maybe 70 percent. Maybe 30. Maybe none at all.
The irony is unbearable: a union that calls itself a “community of values” is now openly debating whether a person still has the right to physical integrity - or whether that’s too much to ask in times of political panic. The rhetoric of the right has long since infiltrated the center. It no longer comes with rage, but with suits, government white papers, and “pragmatism.” They no longer speak of “cleansing,” but of “reassessment.” And yet they mean the same thing.
What is happening now is not just an attack on a treaty from 1950. It is an attack on Europe’s very self-image. When Europe falls, it doesn’t fall in a single day. It falls in stages. It falls in the Council of Ministers, in the Interior Committee, in tweets like Weidel’s, in closed-door meetings and news reports without outrage. It falls quietly - but steadily.
What remains is an image: two politicians shaking hands. And behind them a fresco - a horseman with a drawn sword, a heroic pose. Symbolism from another time. Maybe this is the image we deserve. One that will ask us later: Where were you when Europe began to roll back its human rights?
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