Council of Europe of the national parliaments of each member state. The Commissioner for Human Rights is an independent institution within the Council of Europe, mandated to promote awareness of and respect for human rights in the member states. The Secretary General heads the secretariat of the organisation. Other major CoE bodies include the European Directorate for the Quality of Medicines and the European Audiovisual Observatory. The headquarters of the Council of Europe are in Strasbourg, France. English and French are its two official languages. The Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly and the Congress also use German, Italian, Russian, and Turkish for
Council of Europe–European Union relations Council of Europe–European Union relations The Council of Europe and the European Union have shared relations since . Almost 180 programmes have been implemented between the two European organisations in areas such as human rights, culture, democracy, and the rule of law. In May 2005, the Member states of the Council of Europe, meeting in Warsaw, expressed their wish to see the European Union join the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights. In practice, the Court of Justice of the European Union rulings have already been delivered in such a way as to be consistent with