01/11/2024 President
“As times change, we must recognize that our achievements are never guaranteed, and that we must therefore remain steadfast in upholding the values that guide us and continue to fight for them”, PACE President Theodoros Rousopoulos said in Athens at a ceremony marking 50 years since the re-ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights by Greece and the 75th anniversary of the Council of Europe.
“The Council of Europe is the living result of this drive towards multilateralism, a drive nurtured by a simple consideration: reconciliation builds a better future than hatred,” but he stressed that participating in the organisation “is not like joining a club of perfect democracies once and for all. It is precisely because our nations are not perfect, that they need the European ideal and ideas, as well as their constructive criticism, today more than ever”.
Speakers in the opening of the ceremony, organized in Athens’ Zappeion Megaron by the Presidency of the Hellenic Republic and the Hellenic Parliament, included Katerina Sakellaropoulou, President of the Hellenic Republic; Constantine An. Tassoulas, President of the Hellenic Parliament; Marko Bošnjak, President of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR); Koen Lenaerts, President of the EU Court of Justice; and Ioannis Ktistakis, ECtHR Judge.
PACE Secretary General Despina Chatzivassiliou-Tsovilis moderated a panel on ‘Strengthening of democracy by PACE: the contribution of Greece’, with the participation of Anastasios Chatzivasileiou (representing Dora Bakoyannis, former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Head of the Greek Delegation to the PACE); former Prime Ministers Alexis Tsipras and George Papandreou, members of the Greek Delegation PACE, as well as Liana Kanelli, member of the Greek Delegation to the PACE, and Lazaros Tsabdaridis, President of the Special Permanent Committee of the Hellenic Parliament on monitoring the ECtHR decisions.
Greece was not one of the ten founding members of the Council of Europe, but it was the first state to join, doing so three months later, on 9 August 1949. In 1953, the Hellenic Parliament unanimously ratified the Council of Europe's human rights treaty, the European Convention on Human Rights, and its first protocol.
