Activities of the Assembly’s Bureau and Standing Committee (8 April 2019)

Progress report | Doc. 14855 Add. 1 | 08 April 2019

Author(s):

Bureau of the Assembly

Rapporteur :

Ms Boriana ÅBERG, Sweden, EPP/CD

1 Decisions of the Bureau of 8 April 2019 requiring ratification by the Assembly

1.1 Composition of the Monitoring Committee and the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs

1.1.1 Monitoring Committee

The Bureau, on the basis of a proposal by the SOC Group, appointed Mr Thomas Hammarberg (Sweden).

1.1.2 Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs

The Bureau, on the basis of a proposal by the UEL Group, appointed Ms Ioanneta Kavvadia (Greece).

The Assembly is invited to ratify these Bureau decisions.

2 Other decisions by the Bureau

2.1 Second part-session of 2019 (Strasbourg, 8-12 April)

2.1.1 Requests for debates under urgent procedure and current affairs debate

The Bureau took note of the request tabled by the SOC, ALDE and UEL Groups and decided to recommend to the Assembly to hold a debate under urgent procedure on the report currently being prepared by the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy on Role and mission of the Parliamentary Assembly: main challenges for the future (Rapporteur: Mr Tiny Kox, Netherlands, UEL).

The Bureau took note of the request tabled by the Committee on Rules, Immunities and Institutional Affairs and decided to recommend to the Assembly not to hold a debate under urgent procedure on The budgetary crisis at the Council of Europe.

The Bureau took note of the request tabled by the EC Group and decided to recommend to the Assembly not to hold a current affairs debate on The relationship between the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the State Duma and the Council of the Federation of the Russian Federation.

2.1.2 Draft agenda

The Bureau updated the draft agenda.

2.1.3 Election of judges to the European Court of Human Rights

The Bureau took note of the report drawn up by the Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights following interviews with candidates for the posts of judges in respect of Malta and Turkey. This report had been already declassified by the Committee and submitted to the attention of all members of the Assembly (Doc. 14855 Add. 2).

2.2 Progress report of the Bureau of the Assembly and of the Standing Committee (25 January 2019-7 April 2019) (Rapporteur: Ms Boriana Åberg (EPP/CD, Sweden))

The Bureau approved the Progress report (Doc. 14855).

2.3 Elections observation

2.3.1 Republic of Moldova: parliamentary elections (24 February 2019)

The Bureau approved the report of the ad hoc committee.

2.3.2 Ukraine: presidential election (31 March and 21 April 2019)

The Bureau took note of the statement of the election observation mission and decided to ask the ad hoc committee in its initial composition to observe the second round of this election.

2.3.3 Bulgaria: elections – European Parliament (26 May 2019)

The Bureau took note of the invitation and decided not to observe these elections.

2.4 Communications

The Bureau took note of the communications by the President of the Assembly, the Secretary General and the Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe.

2.5 Issues raised by the committees

Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy

The Bureau authorised Mr Jacques Maire (France, NR), rapporteur on Strengthening parliamentary dialogue with Algeria, to carry out a fact-finding visit to Algeria in 2019, in the framework of the preparation of his report.