CEE CN site

The first INGO session, where representative of CEE Citizens Network was invited, took place from 21 to 25 January 2008 in Strasbourg. CEE Citizens Network was represented on this meeting by Csaba Madarasz from Hungary.

For your information, bellow is description of rights and responsibilities of INGOs enjoying participatory status.

The INGOs enjoying participatory status:

a. may address memoranda to the Secretary General for submission to the committees mentioned above, as well as to the Commissioner for Human Rights;

b. may be invited to provide, through their specific activity or experience, expert advice on Council of Europe policies, programmes and actions;

c. shall receive the agenda and public documents of the Parliamentary Assembly in order to facilitate their attendance at public sittings of the Parliamentary Assembly;

d. shall be invited to public sittings of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of Europe;

e. shall be invited to activities organised for them by the Secretariat;

f. shall be invited to attend seminars, conferences, colloquies of interest to their work according to the applicable Council of Europe rules.

The INGOs enjoying participatory status shall undertake to:

a. keep themselves regularly informed of Council of Europe activities and developments in standards by means of the numerous sources of information available, including the Internet;

b. furnish, either spontaneously or at the request of the Council of Europe’s different bodies, information, documents or opinions relating to their own field(s) of competence on matters which are under consideration or which could be addressed by the Council of Europe;

c. work to promote the respect of the Council of Europe’s standards, conventions and legal instruments in the member states, and assist in the implementation of these standards, and this in close contact with local, regional and national NGOs;

d. give maximum publicity to the initiatives and achievements of the Council of Europe in their own field(s) of competence;

e. disseminate information on Council of Europe standards, instruments and activities, as well as information from the INGO thematic groupings, to their members, on a regular basis, and ensure that they too work actively to fulfil the requirements of the participatory status;

f. submit every four years a report to the Secretary General which should specify:

– their participation in the work of the various Council of Europe bodies (see paragraphs 4 and 6 of this appendix), the capacity in which they attended and their contribution;

– their attendance at events organised by the Secretariat General, the capacity in which they attended, the contribution they made and any follow-up action;

– their attendance at and contributions to the meetings of the INGO thematic groupings;

– any meetings which they themselves have organised, in particular those which have dealt with the promotion of the Council of Europe’s aims, standards and legal instruments;

– any action they have undertaken with a view to ensuring respect of Council of Europe standards and to publicising its work.