(Strasbourg) The new secretary general of the Council of Europe is a woman and is Croatian: Marija Pejčinović Burić was elected on the first voting round at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, last night, with 159 votes. Born in 1963, Pejčinović Burić is currently deputy prime minister in her country and Minister of Foreign and European Affairs. A member of the Christian Democrat Union, she has played a key role in Croatia’s accession to the EU and chaired the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in 2018. She will take office on 18th September, replacing Thorbjørn Jagland, Norwegian, who has been in office for two mandates. “It is a great honour and a pleasure to be the second woman secretary general in the 70 years of the life of the Council of Europe”, stated Pejčinović Burić, after the vote, mentioning Catherine Lalumière, the French woman who was secretary general of the Council from 1989 to 1994. “In my mandate, I will take special care of all the problems relating to discrimination, especially discrimination of women and children”, she went on, thanking her government and the Assembly for the “great support” she received from all sides. Unity, dialogue, peace and prosperity, multilateralism are the goals of the Council, for which “I will spare no efforts” in the next five years, she added.