Council of Europe Foreign Ministers met in Chisinau on 5 and 6 November,
at the invitation of the Moldovan Chairmanship of the Committee of
Ministers. On 5 November, at the invitation of Secretary General Walter
Schwimmer, they held an informal meeting with Dutch Foreign Minister
and OSCE Chairman-in-Office Jaap De Hoop Scheffer, to discuss the
European political architecture and respective roles of different
organisations.
On 6 November, they focused on co-operation between the Council of
Europe and the European Union, and preparation of the 3rd Council
of Europe Summit.
At the end of the session, the Committee of Ministers’ chairmanship
passed from Moldova to the Netherlands. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Foreign
Affairs Minister of the Netherlands, has set out the priorities
of the programme for the Dutch Chairmanship of the Council of Europe
over the next six months.
The programme will be structured around three key themes: the defence
of human rights and the effectiveness of monitoring mechanisms,
integration and social cohesion, the promotion of synergy between
the Council of Europe and other international organisations.
In the Communique of their 113th session, the Council of Europe
Foreign Ministers stressed that ten years after the Vienna Summit,
significant progress has been achieved in fulfilling the Organisation’s
political mandate to bring together all European democratic states.
It would be for the Third Summit to lay down the guidelines for
the future action in the context of profound changes in the continent,
they said, welcoming Poland’s offer to host the Summit in
2005.
|
