20/04/2021 | 12:50:55 Thank you very much, Mr President. And thanks a lot to all colleagues who participated in this important debate and they emphasised all kinds of elements that we should take into account. Some colleague said this is too idealistic and that's something that is a realist conclusion, but may I remind everybody that when in '49 in Strasbourg the Council of Europe met for the first time reality was far worse than reality today: the continent was in ruins and the ideals then that Europe should work... 20/04/2021 | 11:04:11 Mr President, Next month the Committee of Ministers will consider the strategic framework for the Council of Europe. The Bureau of the Assembly decided to agree with your proposal, Mr President, that the Assembly should make its own contribution to this most important process. The Committee for Political Affairs and Democracy was asked to prepare, in time, a report on the Assembly's vision on the strategic priorities for the Council of Europe. The Committee granted me the honour of preparing... 19/04/2021 | 17:35:07 Thank you very much Madam President. I do not think that we should support this proposal from Mr Arkadiusz MULARCZYK. Our committee on the election of judges has done its work at our request and it has taken this decision. Therefore I think we should not undermine the authority of that committee and now oppose the rejection of Poland's list. The Polish authorities know what to do and they have to come up with a new list that meets the criteria, and as I remember, it was important that the... 19/04/2021 | 16:35:33 Madam President, it's good to see you here. We often talk about big countries, but the smaller member states of the Council of Europe are as relevant as as these bigger ones. You said, Madam President, that since your election five months ago Moldova does not have a functioning government. As far as I can see the candidate that you want to form a government has been rejected twice by the majority of Parliament and the candidate that the Parliament proposed was rejected by you. And now you... 28/01/2021 | 09:18:33 Thank you, Mister President. I think we should not call this Assembly a "puppet dog". It is a meeting of the national parliaments of 47 Member States. I think we should pay respect to the essence of the Assembly. Mister President, our rules allow members to challenge credentials of a national delegation at the beginning of each year, but having this right does not say that you always have to use it. Challenging credentials should serve a concrete goal. The right ought not be used time and... 27/01/2021 | 17:13:27 Thank you, Madam President. Several colleagues here say this is not a debate about Mr Alexei Navalny but about much more. But I want to disagree. This is a debate on the arrest of Mr. Navalny. That's the title of the debate, and it's what Mr Navalny deserves – this debate – because he has been arrested for political reasons. That is the subject of this debate. Madam President, most of us in this Assembly do not have close relations to Mr. Navalny. Only a few, I assume, do know him in person... 26/01/2021 | 18:14:37 Thank you, Mister President. First, let me say thank you to the rapporteur, who presented his report that was endorsed by the Rules Committee as the final stage of a long process. It was aimed, this whole process, at giving this Assembly real influence in the future in cases of blatant violations of a member State of our statute or European Convention on Human Rights. Mister President, we all are aware that until now this Assembly does not have a real means to ensure being involved in such... 26/01/2021 | 09:24:51 Thank you, Mr President, and let me first thank you thank our rapporteur, Mr Constantinos EFSTATHIOU, for what is in our view an excellent report. I will make some general remarks with regard to the report and come to some specific judgments, which are very worrying - the non-execution of these judgments. First, if you read Mr EFSTATHIOU's report, you realise how unique this construction is: 47 States under one Court. And the good news is that a lot of the judgments made by our court here in... 25/01/2021 | 17:21:16 Thank you very much, Mr President. First, my compliments to Mr Michael Aastrup JENSEN for the fact that he wrote this report on behalf of the Monitoring Committee and that he got re-elected. Once again, he did a great job last year, in the last difficult year, and I'm confident he will do a great job this year. The Monitoring Committee has adopted this report with large support. I compliment the rapporteur for this report as it is an appropriate summary of the report made by our co... 25/01/2021 | 12:33:01 Mr President, the parliamentary elections on 31 October in Georgia took place in times of Covid. This did not only limit the possibilities of the citizens and the authorities in Georgia, but also our election observation mission. We had to skip a pre-electoral visit to Georgia, could only deploy part of our delegation during the election observation and at first we had to postpone, and later to cancel, a post-electoral permission to the country. Nevertheless, Mr President, thanks to the...