Six decades of preserving and promoting human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

2009 is the year of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Council of Europe. Creating greater unity between its members, preserving and promoting human rights as also democracy and the rule of law has been the aim of the Council of Europe for six decades.
The origins of the Council of Europe go back to a time when the cause of a United Europe was being championed by notables such as Winston Churchill. Churchill called for a United States of Europe and the creation of a Council of Europe in his famous speech at the University of Zurich on the 19th of September 1946. The future structure of the Council of Europe was developed at the Congress of Europe in The Hague on the 7th until the 11th of May 1948.
Organised by the International Committee of the Movements for European Unity (formally re-named into “European Movement” on the 25th of October 1948) and presided over by Winston Churchill, the Congress brought together 800 representatives from across a broad political spectrum, providing them with the opportunity to discuss proposals about the development of the European Union. The idea was to recruit leading European figures capable of giving life to the concept of European unity and the joint exercise of national sovereignties.
The participants of the Congress of Europe favored two different models for the foundation of a Council of Europe which in the end where combined through the creation of the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly under the Statute of the Council of Europe.
The Congress of Europe, organised by the European Movement, was the step stone that lead to the foundation of the Council of Europe on the 5th of May 1949 by the Treaty of London. It was the first major achievement of the European Movement.
Today the Council of Europe unites all the countries of continental Europe and has in total 47 members with some 800 million citizens. The most famous achievement of the Council of Europe was the European Convention on Human Rights, adopted in 1950, that created the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. Over the past 60 years the Council of Europe has drawn up over 200 treaties in co-operation with its member States to defend and extend the rule of law. 2009 will see numerous events organised to celebrate this important anniversary.
To obtain more information and for an overview of the planned events of the Council of Europe in the framework of its 60th anniversary, please click here