The Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe today passed from the Czech Republic to Denmark, at a meeting at the Organisation's Strasbourg headquarters, attended by representatives of its 47 member States.
Before handing over the chairmanship to his successor, the outgoing Chair, Lubomír Zaorálek, Minister of for Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, gave an overview of his country’s achievements during its chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers.
The new Chair of the Committee of Ministers, Anders Samuelsen, Minister of Foreign affairs of Denmark, presented the priorities of the Danish Chairmanship which will run for six months as of today. The priorities are the preservation of the European human rights system in a future Europe, gender equality, involvement of children and young people in democracy, the fight against discrimination of persons with disabilities and combating torture.
The Danish chairmanship will hold a seminar in Copenhagen in April 2018, entitled “Democratic culture – carrying words into action”. The Council of Europe’s “Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture” will be the structure for the seminar, partly by inspiring children and young people’s development of the competency “critical thinking” and partly by creating a framework for the Council of Europe’s launch of a new network for the member States, whose task will be to work on implementing the reference framework at national level. The seminar will thus contribute to children and young people’s development of democratic competences.