Turkey considers it important that the Council of Europe, which represents the largest geography of Europe in the fields of democracy, human rights and the rule of law and of which Turkey is a founding member, occupies a prominent role in the European architecture.

With this understanding, Turkey launched an initiative in January 2015 with a view to becoming one of the major contributor countries (together with Germany, the UK, Italy, France, Russia) to the budget of the Council of Europe.

This initiative, which had been brought into agenda by H.E. Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey, during his tenure as President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe with the purpose of rendering the Council of Europe more efficient, was discussed and adopted at the meeting of Committee of Ministers’ Deputies on 12 May 2015.

Accordingly, Turkey will be one of the six major contributors to the budget of the 47 member-Council of Europe and its contribution margin will increase from approximately 14 million Euros in 2015 to 34 million Euros as of 1 January 2016.

The increase in Turkey’s contribution to the budget of the Council of Europe will reflect positively on the budget of the European Court of Human Rights. In addition, this will enable Turkey to contribute more effectively to the activities of the Council of Europe with a view to deepening and strengthening its principles of democracy, human rights and the rule of law, within and beyond the European continent. The number of the Turkish staff in the Council of Europe Secretariat will be increased to the level of the major contributor countries to the budget.

Following the completion of a simultaneous process initiated also by Turkey and envisaged to be finalized until 2016, it is expected that the number of seats allocated to the Turkish members in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities will be increased from 12 to 18, and Turkish language will become one of the working languages in both of these institutions.

All these initiatives undertaken by Turkey are concrete indications of the importance we attach to the role played by the Council of Europe that approaches human rights from a broad angle and makes respect for human dignity one of the primary elements of our common culture within the framework of the principles of democracy and the rule of law, in strengthening the common values in its member countries.