19/04/2021 | 17:20:02 Thank you Madam. Congratulations to the rapporteur Mr Aleksander POCIEJ for the Progress Report. All of us in Europe are fighting the coronavirus. I'm very glad that our President was so insistent on coming to Strasbourg and that we could meet again after one and a half years. We are probably in the last phase of this fight against the virus – that is called the mass vaccination phase of our fight. I'm convinced that all of us are trying to focus our activities on the most effective method... 25/01/2021 | 12:57:07 Dear Mr Rik DAEMS, congratulations for your re-election as the President of the Assembly. I would like to express my gratitude to all of you, colleagues, the new vice-President, on behalf of Hungary. The incoming presidency of the Council of Europe from May this year. I would like to offer my cooperation to all of you. We had one year without the Parliamentary Assembly. For this reason, I am really glad that finally we can meet again in a hybrid manner. So greetings to you hybrid Assembly, in... 20/11/2020 | 12:24:55 Thank you, Rick, for the possibility. Dear colleagues, two colleagues have mentioned the name of Hungary. Hungary was, yes, among the countries who could not vote for the Athens Declaration. I would like to clarify the Hungarian position. We do support the whole spirit, the wording, but there was a drafting problem in the declaration. The Hungarian permanent representative suggested that we should add two words: "Istanbul Convention" and "relevant national measures" are welcome to fight... 20/11/2020 | 11:32:09 Thank you, Mister President. And I would like to express my gratitude to Mr SPANO. We were very glad to be received by you with the Hungarian foreign minister recently, and we have enjoyed discussion with you very much in the context of our preparation for the Hungarian Presidency following the German Presidency in the course of next year. My question would be a bit more theoretical. We have discussed with Mr Michael ROTH that Council of Europe's intention is strong, that the European Union... 27/01/2020 | 12:49:01 Mr President, first of all, allow me to congratulate you for your election, and to express my gratitude to your predecessor, Madame PASQUIER, who has really played a very important role in a difficult time of our life. I would like to congratulate the Georgian presidency for its activity and know that with thrill in my heart that the Hungarian presidency is coming up in the next year. The Bureau has approved, as it was said by Mr Tiny KOX, the guidelines and external relations of PACE, which... 03/10/2019 | 10:26:32 Madame President, Secretary General, Dear colleagues, I would like to express a grave concern about the large number of refugees who have left, who have lost their lives in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe. In order to avoid the rising death by sea, we need to give urgent responses. I one hundred percent agree with that. The transport alone, however, of the illegal migrants rescued in the Mediterranean to the EU will not stop this process, but generate further pull factors, creating... 30/09/2019 | 12:09:49 Thank you, Madame President. Dear colleagues, in the name of the European People's Party I would like to welcome our new Secretary General Ms Marija PEJČINOVIĆ-BURIĆ among us. Congratulations on your election. We find it a very interesting and telling coincidence that we are celebrating our 70th anniversary and the beginning of your mandate. We would like to congratulate you because we feel it is very important that the European People's Party renewed Christian democracy has a louder voice in... 27/06/2019 | 16:57:08 Dear colleagues. Thank you very much for the interventions. First of all, I would like to express to you that I'm sorry that we couldn't come to a common position with Mr SCHWABE. It would have been easier for you to follow our recommendation. I am convinced that there is no reason to maintain the post-monitoring towards an EU member state for 19 years. There are, as I told, two other countries in this process, for very particular reasons. Macedonia, we all know why. And Montenegro, arrived... 27/06/2019 | 16:22:56 Thank you very much. As we all know, Bulgaria became member of the Council of Europe in 1992. The country has been subject to the monitoring procedure for 6 years, from 1994 to 2000. In 2000, the Assembly decided to close the full monitoring procedure and to open a post-monitoring dialogue with the Bulgarian authorities. Since then, two reports have been submitted by the Monitoring Committee on the progress achieved by Bulgaria: the first in 2010, the other in 2013. My German colleague, Mr... 25/06/2019 | 10:52:53 Dear colleagues, in the name of the European People's Party, I would like to draw your attention to two important recent developments. One is the change of presidencies, and the other is the change of the Secretary-General. Concerning the presidencies, I would like to congratulate the outgoing Finnish presidency from my heart. They have done a good job. I would like to welcome the new French presidency. They seem to have a very good and very dynamic programme for their priorities. Both...