27/09/2021 | 19:05:39 Thank you very much Mr President. May I first thank the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs for granting me the honour to draft this resolution on guidelines on the scope of the parliamentary immunities enjoyed by all members of the Parliamentary Assembly. May I thank as well the Secretariat of the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs, and in particular Ms Kateryna Gayevska for the support I received when delivering this... 27/09/2021 | 15:50:32 Thank you very much Mr President and let me also, on behalf of the group of the Unified European Left, pay my compliments to the prize winner of our Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, Ms Maria Kalesnikava, and let us all support a call for her immediate release from the Belarusian prison. As I have often said, politicians do not belong in prisons they belong in the public sphere and they belong in parliaments. Let us hope that the prize that we have awarded her is in support to that idea and I... 24/06/2021 | 16:25:25 Thank you very much, Mister President. On behalf of the group of Unified European Left, I congratulate this Assembly to have this debate today on this resolution on Afrophobia and anti-Black racism. My group wholeheartedly endorses the resolution and salutes rapporteur and my good friend Mr Momodou Malcolm JALLOW for the excellent work done by him and the staff of the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination under difficult Covid-19 conditions. Mister President, in case this Assembly... 23/06/2021 | 12:06:06 In my opinion the Istanbul Convention, that is first and foremost men, it is men who use violence against women. It is men who harass, beat, rape and kill wives, mothers, daughters. Women, they know well, women they do not know at all. Relatives and strangers, colleagues and subordinates, servants and women who will happen to have the bad luck to just be passing by. The scale of harassment of women, the number of men who violate women in their integrity and their dignity is all enormous and... 22/06/2021 | 16:25:11 Thank you very much, Madam Secretary General. It's great to have you here again. While we should be grateful that the pandemic now seems that we are recovering from the pandemic, we have to be worried that another virus seems to infect the structures that should protect our rule of law, our human rights and our democracy. In your annual report to the the Council of Europe, to the Committee of Ministers, that you presented to recently you say that democracy is in distress. From a person who... 21/06/2021 | 18:16:11 Thank you Miss President, I'm very happy to see you for this very interesting debate. Democracy is of crucial importance that politicians are able to freely exercise their mandate. I quote the rapporteur where he emphasises in this first paragraph. This issue is most important in the resolution. On behalf of the Group of the Unified European Left I fully agree that freedom of speech and assembly both in parliament and when speaking in public meetings or through the media, including social... 21/06/2021 | 17:24:26 Thank you very much, Mister President. Thank you very much, Mister President of the Committee of Ministers. You have taken over in challenging times which we might recover from Covid-19. But our democracy is in distress as the the Secretary General of the Council of Europe has reminded us in the last report. Mister Minister, the Committee of Ministers is the part of the organisation that has to take care that the verdicts of the Court are executed. Three of these cases are now in their final... 21/06/2021 | 12:30:19 Thank you very much, Madam president. It's great to see you in the chair. When Ms Petra BAYR started her intervention, we had a full fledged female rostrum after the first intervention of a female rapporteur, so there is still hope for this Assembly in the future. I wish Ms Nicole TRISSE with her report, a more gender balance in this organization as well. Let me start to thank the rapporteur for her work, but also the other rapporteurs on the election observation, Mr Alfred HEER and Mr... 22/04/2021 | 10:19:54 Thank you, Mr President. Yesterday President Putin made his State of the Union, which was watched by millions of Russians and the President addressed many important issues, like the pandemic, the international tensions and the social and economic situation in Russia. There's one issue he did not mention in the State of the Union and that was the issue that was mentioned by thousands only a few hours later in the streets of Moscow and St Petersburg and Irkutsk and in Novossibirsk. That was the... 21/04/2021 | 11:33:30 Thank you Mr President. After the presidential elections on the 9 August last year, massive protests broke out in the in the streets of Belarus and we noticed a very harsh reaction of the authorities to this peaceful protest. The Parliamentary Assembly by its Standing Committee could already react very soon on what was happening there Belarus which is the only State and territory of Europe which is not a member State of our Assembly, but nevertheless, is in the midst of Europe. And in that...