European ministers have agreed to negotiate a new approach to the continent’s main ECHR human rights treaty, that would make it easier to deport illegal migrants. The decision comes as more governments argue that the treaty restricts their ability to control their borders.

Issued on: 11/12/2025 - 08:30

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At a Council of Europe meeting in Strasbourg on Wednesday, justice ministers from the organisation’s 46 member states defended the need to revamp the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) for the modern age.

It came six months after nine countries – including Italy, Denmark, Poland and Belgium – published a letter criticising the ECHR for setting "too many limits" on their power to expel people from their territories.

The 46 nations will now work towards adopting a "political declaration" on the issue of migration at a summit next May.

Alain Berset, secretary-general of the Council of Europe, which oversees the convention, said signatory countries were not calling for the treaty itself to be rewritten.

"It was the start of a process, on a consensus basis, because it is the only way to make some progress," he told reporters after Wednesday’s meeting.

Migration issues ‘high on agenda’

The talks took place as Europe continues to tighten migration policy.

In early December, European Union member states agreed to make deportations easier and to expand the processing of asylum seekers outside Europe.

In recent years, the link between the European Convention on Human Rights and national measures to control migration has become the subject of intense political debate in many Council of Europe states.

“Migration issues are high on the agenda of countries and people across Europe,” said Berset ahead of the meeting.

“The European Convention on Human Rights provides the framework we need to address these issues effectively and responsibly. Our task is not to weaken the convention, but to keep it strong and relevant – to ensure that liberty and security, justice and responsibility, are held in balance.”

According to various sources cited by legal analysts, between 15 and 20 states now back the initiative launched by Denmark and Italy to narrow how parts of the convention are applied in migration cases.

Some governments have gone further. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has threatened to denounce the convention if a ruling expected in early 2026 on Polish pushbacks of migrants goes against his government.

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Push for reform

The debate centres on two key articles of the convention often used by those challenging deportation orders. Article 3 bans torture and inhuman or degrading treatment. Article 8 protects the right to respect for private and family life.

Belgian jurist Marc Bossuyt, a former president of Belgium’s constitutional court and a critic of the ECHR’s approach to migration, told French daily Le Monde that governments are “fed up with the interpretation of the Strasbourg court”.

He said he believes in these instruments and the rule of law, but argued that “international treaties established long ago must be applied in current circumstances”.

Bossuyt said the ECHR’s reading of Article 3 goes too far by not only banning torture but also requiring states to provide a “decent asylum procedure” and “decent reception” for asylum seekers, which he argues falls outside the article.

He also called for a more restrictive reading of Article 8, warning that as long as the court in Strasbourg interprets it broadly, “it is normal that national judges follow it”.

In the UK, the debate has seen calls by the right-wing Conservative Party and anti-immigration Reform UK to quit the convention.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of the left-wing Labour Party, has instead pushed for reform from within.

In a joint article with Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, he argued that the convention should be updated to deal with “mass mobility” and said that “listening to legitimate concerns and acting on them is what our politics is about”.

British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has already announced plans to curb the use of Article 8 in deportation appeals and to reassess how Article 3 is applied. She said the definition of these rights “has reached the heights of absurdity”.

“Today we try to deport criminals, but we find it is impossible because the prisons in their home countries have cells deemed too small, or even mental health services less effective than ours,” she said.

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Warnings from legal experts

Many legal scholars reject the claim that the court is blocking migration control. Strasbourg law professor Peggy Ducoulombier told Le Monde that in 10 years, immigration cases made up less than 2 percent of the court’s 420,000 applications and that more than 90 percent were rejected as inadmissible or because there was no violation.

“One can disagree with a ruling, but this system protects all of us,” she said. “We have a lot to lose by weakening it.”

Céline Romainville, a law professor at the Catholic University of Louvain, said many attacks on the court “blow up one ruling without putting it in context” and do not take into account the full body of case law.

Officials at the Council of Europe and legal commentators say states are now working towards an interpretative declaration on migration and the convention, to be agreed by 2026, which would give political guidance to the court on how to apply the treaty.