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Frederiksen and Starmer push to water down Europe’s human rights treaty

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called late Tuesday for a reform of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) as European nations move to get tougher on migration.

“The current asylum framework was created for another era. In a world with mass mobility, yesterday’s answers do not work. We will always protect those fleeing war and terror — but the world has changed and asylum systems must change with it,” Frederiksen and Starmer wrote in a joint op-ed for The Guardian.

“Today, millions are on the move not only because their lives are in danger, but because they want a better future. If we fail to take account of this, we would fail the needs of genuine refugees and the communities that for too long have been asked to absorb rapid change,” they added.

Their appeal takes on added significance after the EU overhauled its migration rules on Monday, which made Denmark’s tough approach to migration a standard for the bloc. Establishment political groups across Europe are struggling to deal with the rise of anti-migration parties, which have used the issue as electoral rocket fuel in recent years.

Europe’s justice and home affairs ministers signed off on new policies that let EU countries deport unsuccessful asylum applicants, establish offshore processing centers and create removal hubs beyond EU territory. The U.K. overhauled its asylum system in a similar direction last month.

Representatives from around 40 of the 46 Council of Europe members are expected to attend a meeting Wednesday on migration in Strasbourg.

The Council of Europe — the continent’s leading human rights organization — wants to counter the narrative that the ECHR is standing in the way of action on migration, including returns. In May, 9 countries signed a letter calling for the ECHR — which came into force in 1953 — to be reinterpreted to allow migrants who commit crimes to be expelled more easily.

“This is our chance to bring that discussion where it belongs — within the walls of the Council of Europe — and to chart a way forward,” the organization’s boss Alain Berset told POLITICO’s Brussels Playbook.

Zoya Sheftalovich contributed to this report.

LP Staff Writers

Writers at Lord’s Press come from a range of professional backgrounds, including history, diplomacy, heraldry, and public administration. Many publish anonymously or under initials—a practice that reflects the publication’s long-standing emphasis on discretion and editorial objectivity. While they bring expertise in European nobility, protocol, and archival research, their role is not to opine, but to document. Their focus remains on accuracy, historical integrity, and the preservation of events and individuals whose significance might otherwise go unrecorded.

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