Hungary takes over chairmanship of CoE council of ministers

Hungary took over the chairmanship of the Council of Ministers of the Council of Europe (CoE) from Germany at a meeting in Hamburg on Friday.

Péter Szijjártó, the foreign minister, said after the meeting at which he briefed participants about the Hungarian Presidency’s programme running until Nov. 17, that Hungary had chosen three priority areas: national minority protection, religious communities, and the rights of children and families.

Concerning the protection of national minorities, Szijjártó highlighted Minority SafePack, an initiative urging European Union protection for national and linguistic minorities in the bloc, which the European Commission had not added to its agenda. The minister said he hoped Hungary’s chairmanship of the CoE council of ministers would lead to “Strasbourg doing a better job than Brussels”.

As regards the protection of religious communities, Szijjártó noted the issue of the persecution of Christians “in Europe’s neighbourhood”.

He said it was especially worrying that protests against the Israel-Palestine conflict had recently taken an “anti-Semitic turn” in several European countries.

Turning to the protection of children and families, the minister said the pandemic had forced many children to “join the digital space without experience”, making them vulnerable to cyber criminals and predators.