Council of Europe elects new Secretary General | Currently Europe | '
Croatian Foreign Minister Marija Pejcinovic Buric prevailed 159 to 105 at the meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe against her Belgian colleague Didier Reynders. The 56-year-old succeeds on September 18, the Norwegian Thorbjørn Jagland as new Secretary-General in office.
In her acceptance speech to the Council of Europe, Pejcinovic Buric called the organization "more important than ever". She hoped for the support of MEPs during their mandate "to work together on the founding objectives of the organization – peace and prosperity for European citizens."
It is the first time that the Council of Europe is headed by a political figure from Eastern Europe. As a focal point of her work, the former Foreign Minister has called journalists action against discrimination against women.
Pejcinovic Buric is considered a close confidant of the Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic – as he belongs to the liberal wing of the Christian Democratic Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ). Her political career began in 2000 as a member of the Croatian negotiating team for the EU accession of the Balkan state, which took place in 2013. From 2008 to 2011, she was also a member of the Croatian Parliament. During the pre-accession of Croatia to the EU, she acquired a great deal of knowledge about the functioning of the Brussels policy. As Foreign Minister, she also belonged to the Committee of Ministers.
Only the second woman at the head of the Council of Europe
After studying economics at the University of Zagreb in the mid-1980s, Pejcinovic Buric temporarily lived in Paris, London and Spain, where she worked her way through all sorts of jobs, including being a babysitter. She owes her language skills to these stays, which can not harm the Council of Europe.
The politician was born in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where she grew up in the city of Ljubuski near the Croatian border. There she also discovered her passion for handball, a sport she practiced at a high level even after moving to Croatia – until she had to give it up after injury in the 1980s. She is married and mother of a daughter.
So far, only once was a woman at the head of the Council of Europe – the French elected socialist Catherine Lalumière elected in 1989 – and once a German, the SPD politician Georg Kahn-Ackermann from 1974 to 1979. The Strasbourg-based organization currently employs about 2,200 staff and has an annual budget of around 440 million euros.
Candidates for Strasbourg's top posts are proposed by their governments and nominated by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. The final say comes from the parliamentary assembly, which consists of 318 national MPs from the Council of Europe countries. The mandate is valid for five years. The Council of Europe was founded 70 years ago – four years after the end of the Second World War.
Negative headlines
It was commissioned by the founding nations to act as the "conscience of Europe" for democracy, human rights and the rule of law. The organization includes the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), which has to monitor compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights. Today, the Council of Europe has 47 member states – all European countries except Belarus.
Just a few days ago, the Council of Europe made headlines when the panel decided to lift sanctions imposed on 18 Russian MPs in April 2014 over the annexation of the Crimea. Among other things, they got their vote back. Thus, the Assembly paved the way for a return of the Russian delegation, which had boycotted the sessions for five years. The decision triggered violent protests from MEPs from Ukraine, the Baltic States, Poland, Slovakia and Georgia. "The future of the Council of Europe is threatened," warned the people's representatives of the countries in a joint statement.
lh / kle (dpa, afp)
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