She was speaking at a PACE Standing Committee meeting organised in Sarajevo after Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) took over a six-month presidency over the Council of Europe (CoE) earlier this week.
You have a big responsibility for the whole region, where tensions are very strong, Brasseur told Bosnian representatives in charge of coordinating the CoE's work over the next six months.
She said this period would be full of big challenges such as the immigrant crisis in Europe, human rights violations, the appearance of various forms of hate and intolerance, terrorist threats and the Ukraine crisis.
BiH's presidency won't be easy because we are faced with a big crisis and it's now up to BiH to lead Europe and not follow it, Brasseur said.
BiH lower house Speaker Sefik Dzaferovic and BiH Foreign Minister Igor Crnadak said BiH would actively work on dealing with the problems common to all 47 CoE member states and their 820 million inhabitants.
They hope that BiH's CoE presidency will encourage reforms in BiH, including the implementation of the European Court of Human Rights ruling in the Sejdic-Finci case, which requires BiH to eliminate discrimination against national minorities in the electoral process.