The President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopis PAVLOPOULOS, encouraged Congress President Anders KNAPE to continue the work to strengthen local and regional democracy across Europe. The Congress President had an opportunity to update President PAVLOPOULOS about the priorities of his mandate and underlined the Congress’ support for cities and regions in dealing with the challenges of migration and fighting corruption. “The Congress can implement Council of Europe (CoE) principles and conventions in concrete terms at the local level. We will do this in addition to defending the quality of democracy and citizen participation in all the member states of the CoE”, he said.

Anders KNAPE, Secretary-General Andreas KIEFER, Vice-President Michalis ANGELOPOULOS and members of the Congress delegation also informed the President of the Hellenic Republic about the preparations for the Congress’ contribution to the activities and priorities of the Greek Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in 2020.