29/01/2020 | 17:26:07 Thank you very much, Mr President. Mr President, I too would like to thank the rapporteur, Frank Schwabe, for this excellent report. I would also like to thank, once again — as some people have already done, but I think it is important — those who have been involved in the process, starting with Mr Nicoletti, who started this brainstorming process two years ago, when we were considering how to get out of the situation. Also Mrs Maury PASQUIER and the others who were involved. I believe that... 02/10/2019 | 12:35:38 Thank you very much, Madam President. Now, for my part, I would first of all like to congratulate you, Ms Burić. Your predecessor, Thorbjørn Jagland, announced in his second term of office that he wanted to bring the European Social Charter and the question of social rights center stage. We had, of course, many other problems to contend with over the last few years so not much could happen. But I would like to encourage you to perhaps pay greater attention to the process of the European... 30/09/2019 | 16:27:03 Thank you, Mr President. On the progress report, I would first like to thank Ms Nicole TRISSE for the presentation. You have also addressed many important issues. It is always the case when we discuss the progress report here every three months, that we see developments that are actually progress. In other areas you can put question marks there. I would also like to reiterate the points you have raised that there has been some progress in Russian-Ukrainian relations since the last session, e... 24/06/2019 | 18:02:32 Thank you very much, Madam President, Mrs Rapporteur, Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to warmly congratulate you on this report, which is the end product of a long process, a long discussion process. I will also support this report. You just have to see, and there is no getting around the fact that the Council of Europe is in an institutional crisis on this issue. We have been discussing this for a long time, we have created a situation in which the... 10/04/2019 | 18:50:19 We are having this debate because the Council of Europe is in an institutional crisis. On the one hand we have a business-as-usual approach by the Committee of Ministers while on the other here in the Parliamentary Assembly we are faced with a situation in which we can no longer talk to our Russian colleagues. This report is a way of trying to overcome this institutional crisis and is trying to align decisions of the Assembly with those of the Committee of Ministers. That is why I... 09/04/2019 | 17:11:28 I congratulate Ms Petra De SUTTER on this important report, which has been submitted at just the right time. We have also been discussing the background to this debate at European Union level and in a number of national Parliaments. We are looking at this backsliding that there is of the rule of law in a number of countries within the Council of Europe and the European Union. How can we respond to this? A number of proposals have been made within the European Union to respond; proposals that... 24/01/2019 | 16:38:31 I thank the rapporteurs, Ms Marianne MIKKO and Mr Nigel EVANS, for their important report, which the Group of the Unified European Left will support. I also thank Sir Roger GALE for stepping in to replace the rapporteurs. This debate is illustrative of the problem. The Group of the Unified European Left reject any form of terrorism – that should be stated quite clearly – but that does not mean that we are of the view that there might not be an abuse of anti-terrorism legislation. What we are... 22/01/2019 | 17:28:48 I fully support the position expressed by Mr Henk OVERBEEK, the spokesman for our group. Our problem with the report is that it talks about three separate processes, which we need to deal with separately. The first, of course, is the Magnitsky case itself. I have no doubt about the fact that he died unjustifiably in a Russian prison. The second issue is the international reaction to that death and the way in which it has been dealt with internationally, particularly by the United States. The... 22/01/2019 | 11:12:18 In a democracy, the population is sovereign. We as MPs are just the delegates of the population – we debate things, but in the end the population must have the right to vote on important questions, including in referendums. I come from a country where, unfortunately, we do not have any referendums, although the majority of the political parties would like to see them come back. We are in the process of considering that, and I think that Germany should have referendums at a federal level. We... 21/01/2019 | 12:21:04 Our Assembly has observed all presidential and parliamentary elections in Georgia since 1995. I chaired the Assembly’s delegation in the pre-electoral mission, and the first and second rounds of the presidential elections in Georgia on 28 October and 28 November 2018, together with the delegations of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the European Parliament, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly and the OSCE-Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights election observation mission. Our...