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An entire year dedicated to “bringing the national and European institutions closer to citizens” and “relaunching participative democracy”: with this aim the Council of Europe has proclaimed 2005 “European Year of Citizenship through Education”. The announcement came from the headquarters of the Council of Europe (46 member states, 800 million inhabitants) in Strasbourg. The decision to introduce the special year was announced by the president of the Parliamentary Assembly Peter Schieder and its general secretary Terry Davis: “This Year has been inspired by a trend registering growing disinterest among the citizens of Europe, attested by the low rate of participation in recent elections and by a low opinion of political leaders and politics in general”. In particular 2005 “will be focused on children, adolescents and ongoing education”, involving schools, universities, places of education and social centres. The initiative was presented in Sofia, capital of Bulgaria, on 13 and 14 December, during a conference on the theme “Learning and experiencing democracy”, attended by 150 participants “including professionals and experts in educational policies and representatives of NGOs and other international institutions”. The delegates shared their experiences, adopted a Declaration and action plan for 2005 and announced “activities at the local, national and international level”. In the intentions of its promoters, the meeting “was intended to focus attention on how fundamental education, both formal and informal, is throughout life to the development of active citizenship, to the quality of participation in a democratic society and to the promotion of a democratic culture”. The conclusions of the conference “will be submitted to the attention of the Third Summit of the heads of state and of government of the Council of Europe, due to be held in Warsaw on 16-17 May 2005. But the debate on these issues is still very much alive within the Council of Europe. The chairperson of its committee for relations with international NGOs, Anne Lise Oeschger, raised the question of respect for the rule of law and human rights in her address to the Committee of Ministers last week. There are in fact numerous situations in which these bulwarks of democracy risk being ignored; among others, the situations in Ukraine, Turkey, Cyprus and the Balkans are raising serious concerns. According to Oeschger herself, the basic values by which the Council of Europe has been inspired for half a century “are weaker” today. In Europe, for example, “social rights are now very much weakened”. She also pointed out that “democracy and human rights may be sacrificed when it is a question of striking the right balance between the campaign against terrorism and the rule of law. If our fundamental values are breached by terrorism, it means than terrorism has won”. On the contrary, “only by putting our principles firmly into practice can we effectively defeat international terrorism”.
