On 9 August 1949, Greece became the eleventh member of the Council of Europe. The organisation had been founded in London three months earlier on 5 May by the ten original member countries: Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
In May 2020 Greece took over from Georgia the rotating six-month chairmanship of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, before handing over to Germany in November of the same year.