BRUSSELS — If Europe wants to cut migrant flows then changing the European Convention on Human Rights is the wrong way to go, the Council of Europe’s human rights chief Michael O’Flaherty told POLITICO in an interview Monday.
“Changes to the way the European Convention [ECHR] is or is not interpreted is going to have no impact on migratory flows. So if it’s the migratory flows that you’re interested in then you’ve got to look somewhere else,” O’Flaherty said.
His remarks come after 46 Council of Europe (CoE) members, including 27 EU countries, agreed in December to change how the ECHR is applied by the courts, calling for a stronger treaty response to human smuggling, border security and the expulsion of offenders. The nations aim to adopt a political declaration at a May summit in Chișinău, Moldova.
The Strasbourg-based European Court for Human Rights, which enforces the ECHR across the Council member states, has faced mounting pressure from governments in recent months. In May 2025, nine EU countries signed a letter calling for the ECHR — which took effect in 1953 — to be reinterpreted to allow migrants who commit crimes to be expelled more easily.
CoE Secretary-General Alain Berset pushed back, saying the courts mustn’t be “weaponized” for political gain.
In December 2025, the prime ministers of two of the signatory countries, Mette Frederiksen of Denmark and Keir Starmer of the U.K., contributed a joint op-ed to the Guardian calling for the ECHR to be reformed.
O’Flaherty on Monday warned against limiting human rights for migrants who commit crimes, calling it “very risky.”
“There are some who would say that criminal migrants should have less human rights protection than others. I think that’s a very risky pathway to go down because today it’s criminal migrants. But who’s it going to be tomorrow? Is it going be the Roma community? Is it is going to the trans community? Is it going to be Jews?” O’Flaherty said.
“Look at our European history. Once you mark out one group within society for lesser protection of human rights, you create a dreadful precedent.”
The EU has been hardening its migration policy to counter the rise of far-right parties across the continent. In December it approved new measures allowing EU countries to remove failed asylum seekers, set up processing centers overseas, and create removal hubs beyond their borders. The European Commission followed up in January with a five-year migration strategy stressing “assertive migration diplomacy.”
But O’Flaherty challenged the view that a tough line on migration will work as a firewall against the far right.
“I see an increasing willingness to countenance migration policies that at a minimum put human rights at extreme risk,” he said. “I don’t consider that a lot of the strategies in migration management are … going to be particularly effective in seeking to do what they’re claimed to do, you know, like undermining the extreme right.”
“Principles and values and rights are challenged. The most effective way to respond is by digging in ever deeper in defense of such principles, values and rights,” O’Flaherty said.