The President of PACE, Jean-Claude Mignon conferred with students from the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. The subject discussed at the meeting attended also by the National Assembly President, Mihail Mikov, was: “Democracy, human rights and supremacy of the law in Europe – the role of the Council of Europe and its Parliamentary Assembly”.

Jean-Claude Mignon has underscored that he is interested to hear the opinion of young people and how they perceive Europe. The Council of Europe is an organization uniting 800 million Europeans from 47 countries, which mission is to work for a better life for the present young and future generations. 

Jean-Claude Mignon pointed out that the National Assembly is the home of democracy and its job is to make possible the governance of the state. Since the 1992 accession of Bulgaria to the Council of Europe, she has proved to be a democratic state. In his view the most important thing now is for the National Assembly to be let working. He specified that the demands of the protesters need to be thoroughly listen to and considered.

Answering a student’s question, Jean-Claude Mignon explained that the Council of Europe has established political schools for civil education. Due to lack of financial resources the CE in not in a position currently to establish more centers for civil education but the member countries could initiate such education on their own. In his view there exist a great deal of discrepancy between the political power in the country and young people, as well as negative perceptions towards the politicians.

At the end of the meeting the president of PACE urged the Bulgarian National Assembly to ratify the Council of Europe’s Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, signed in Istanbul in 2011. He noticed the convention is already ratified by 10 member states of the Council of Europe.

Jean-Claude Mignon has invited the attending young people to visit Strasburg and to acquaint themselves with the activity of the European Court for Human Rights and its Parliamentary Assembly.