Prof. Petra Roter concludes her third term as President of the independent Advisory Committee on the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities

Prof. Petra Roter, Ph.D. (cantab), Chair of International Relations and the Centre of International Relations, chaired the 89th plenary meeting of the Advisory Committee on the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, held from 18 to 22 May 2026.

At this plenary session, the Advisory Committee, composed of 18 independent experts on minority rights, adopted the joint Fifth and Sixth Opinion on Ukraine and the Sixth Opinion on Slovakia, and approved the Fifth Opinion on Poland and the Sixth Opinion on Slovenia. Following this approval, a confidential dialogue with the respective authorities will take place, after which the Advisory Committee will adopt the final text of its Opinions at its next plenary session (scheduled for the end of October 2026). The Opinion then becomes publicly available no later than four months after its adoption.

With this plenary session, Prof. Roter concludes her second (and final) four-year term on the Advisory Committee. During these eight years, independent experts in the Advisory Committee elected her as the President of the Advisory Committee three times (in 2016–18, 2022–24 and 2024–26). During the first two years of her first mandate (2014–16), she was elected as the First Vice-President of the Advisory Committee. Over both mandates in the Advisory Committee, she participated in numerous working groups, most recently in the working group on Ukraine, where following the full-scale aggression by the Russian Federation against Ukraine the Advisory Committee employed several methods, including a shortened country visit, in order to prepare its assessment of the implementation of the Framework Convention in Ukraine.

Prof. Roter's second mandate, which was also marked by the adoption (in May 2024) of a new revised thematic commentary on education, was concluded with a reception hosted for representatives of member states and members of the Advisory Committee by the Permanent Representative of the Republic of Slovenia to the Council of Europe, Ambassador Berta Mrak, who is also the of the Rapporteur Group on Human Rights (GR-H) within the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

The work of Prof. Roter in the field of managing ethnic diversity through minority rights and her contribution to this area were also recognised by her inclusion (in 2024) on the list of 75 women from all member states of the Council of Europe who have played a key role in shaping the achievement of the organisation’s goals throughout its 75-year history.