Strasbourg

Council of Europe: Although no official sessions of the Conference of INGOs at the Council of Europe were scheduled for October, some groups met in an informal way. Among them the Working Group on ‘Human Rights and Religions’. Representatives of Andante take part in this group which is currently doing research in this area. The discussions will continue in January 2012 and the document that should result from it will probably be presented at the parliamentary session of June 2012.

CINGO – The representatives from the Christian NGOs at the Council of Europe who were able to come to Strasbourg also met in October. One of the items on the Agenda was the report ‘The religious dimension of intercultural dialogue’ and what could be the contribution from the CINGOs in the follow-up to this report drafted by Ms Anne Brasseur, of the Luxembourg delegation to the Council of Europe.

Several CINGO members were able to participate at the ‘Civil Society Forum’, organised by the Conference of INGOs on the theme ‘Living together: Combining diversity and freedom in the 21st-century Europe’, 13th and 14th November in Strasbourg.
(cf. http://www.coe.int/T/NGO/default_en.asp# )