12/10/2022 | 11:22:30 Thank you, Mr President. Dear colleagues, On behalf of the Group of the European People's Party allow me to thank the rapporteurs for the work and the Monitoring Committee for its meticulous observations. We must confess nonetheless that this report is alarming. It's a signal that should activate us all in this Parliamentary Assembly - but above all, and most of all, the Turkish delegation. The report validates a harsh reality. Democracy in Türkiye has been deteriorating so fast and so much... 11/10/2022 | 10:50:09 Dear colleagues, The Western Balkans produce more history than they can consume, said Churchill. Yet, that history today lacks honouring. It needs recognition as it is none other than part of our history, European history. The report in question reaffirms the support for the European Union prospect of the Western Balkans. A promise that has been forgotten and is long overdue to the people of that region. I want to congratulate the rapporteur Mr George PAPANDREOU for his excellent work... 21/06/2022 | 10:24:31 Thank you, Mr President. I want to congratulate and thank Mr Bogdan KLICH on the draft report and recommendations he presented to us today. As I told him in Chania during the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy meeting, this report will be crucial for the future of this organisation. It constitutes one of the few opportunities we have to situate the Council of Europe at the heart of the European architecture during difficult times, times of revisionism and war. I want to underline... 15/03/2022 | 11:03:01 Thank you, Chair. Dear colleagues, Today is an historic moment for our organisation. A moment of action but also of reflection. Putin's aggression against Ukraine's territorial integrity, against its democracy and its people, and 150 000 thousand Greeks in Mariupol, has no excuse, no ground for justification. It is an act that contradicts international law, contradicts international order. An act that takes Europe back 70 years. Our message is clear: there can be no place for a member State... 21/06/2021 | 18:06:34 Let me start by saying that this report confuses me a little bit. It confuses me for the simple reason that, as that as the rapporteur rightly said, you cannot put Spain and Turkey in the same report. The truth is that these are two completely different situations, but completely different situations. It is indeed the case, as this Assembly has said again and again, that Turkey has a rule of law issue. We all remember our position last year when, without proper judicial proceedings, Mr Kavala... 22/04/2021 | 12:09:13 Thank you very much, Madam President. Dear colleagues, it's the third urgent plenary debate we have on the situation in Turkey in the past year and a half. The main thing is the deteriorating situation of democracy, of human rights and the rule of law. Evidently, despite our warnings and recommendations, things have not been improving in Turkey. Far from it. How long can this keep up? It gives no one joy to have to remind that often a member of this Assembly, colleagues of ours, that their... 27/01/2021 | 12:01:35 Thank you, Mister President. First and foremost, allow me to congratulate our rapporteur for an excellent comprehensive resolution, at this given moment, dealing with the main issue at hand regarding the COVID-19 vaccines. However, I would like to add two points in the overall discussion taking place. We are witnessing an acute issue and even a potential legal dispute between the EU and some vaccine-producing pharmaceutical companies regarding the late distribution of the agreed-upon vaccine... 03/10/2019 | 10:19:52 Dear colleagues, Let me give you a little bit of the Greek experience. The Greek experience is 800 people today, between eight o'clock in the morning and nine o'clock in the morning, arriving at the Greek island of Mitilini. Before yesterday, a young mother 23 years old and her daughter of three years old drowned at a near island called Inusses. What does that mean? It means that thousands of people are coming again and trying to get to Europe. We had a crisis in 2015. I'm afraid we are in...