Chisinau, December 8 (Infotag). The Council of Europe has proclaimed 2005 as “The European Year of Citizenship through Education”. Its motto will be “Learning and Living Democracy”. Director of the Moldova Information Office of the Council of Europe Lilia Snegureac told a news conference in Infotag today that the campaign is targeted at attracting the public attention to promotion of democratic values. She said the campaign would start in Sofia (Bulgaria) on December 13-14 in the presence of Education Ministers from CE member states. The CE Information Office and the French Embassy to Moldova will organize, on December 21, a national conference on the European Year of Citizenship through Education. During the year, the CE Information Office will be organizing seminars, trainings, various contests in all parts of the country, and will publish brochures on democratic values. Lilia Snegureac is convinced that the feeling of citizenship and human right observance can help develop critical thinking, mutual understanding, inter-culture dialog, gender equality and solidarity. In her opinion, the coming year is going to be very essential for Moldova. The experience of previous years has shown how complicated pre-election processes are, and how disinterested many citizens are in what concerns elections. In such an environment, the propaganda of democratic citizenship may arouse people’s interest in elections, she believes. Lilia Snegureac assessed the year 2004 as fruitful in what concerns Moldova’s cooperation with the CE. “Moldova has proved its interestedness in promotion of European values and observance of human rights. Jointly with the Council of Europe and other organizations, certain efforts were undertaken to help resolve the Transnistrian problem. And although no lasting settlement of the conflict has been achieved yet, we shall continue this work next year”, said CE Information Office Director. In her words, the European Court of Human Rights has registered 807 complaints and applications sent it by Moldovan citizens, and judgments have already been made by the Court on 10 of these petitions.