09/04/2025 | 10:12:54 Thank you very much, Mister President. Dear colleagues, Good morning. Maybe sometimes some people think I have a kind of fever or mania about certain people in certain countries, but I don't. It would be much better not to have to discuss such topics, but we have to discuss them. We need this anti-corruption report. Why? Because corruption is destroying all our values: democracy, rule of law and human rights. We could write a book about it. But this is how it is. We have to deal with it. We... 29/01/2025 | 18:05:51 Dear President, Unfortunately, there is nothing like this. The election observation mission made a report and I would ask you to read it very carefully. And we spoke about widespread violations of everything as to what this election should be. For sure, there was no fraud in the election in the ballot boxes, this is clear. But around, there was a lot. And because of this, this is the kind of way we want to go. We want to say "the door is open", but we send a very clear signal with limitations... 29/01/2025 | 16:50:17 Dear Mister President, dear Petra, dear Zanda, Thank you very much for your work. Especially, I really want to thank Zanda for this excellent work, which makes it possible for us to show great unity in this Parliamentary Assembly today. Dear acting authorities in Georgia, The Council of Europe is the oldest multilateral organisation in Europe. The Council of Europe has one main task. The main task is to support countries on the way to more democracy, to more human rights and to more rule of... 29/01/2025 | 12:16:24 Dear Mister President, dear honourable guests, I'm speaking today not only as group leader, but also as the head of the German delegation. That fills me with awe. The Holocaust is a crime against humanity that to this day exceeds my imagination. It has brutally cost the lives of various population groups, including LGBTIQ, the community of Roma and Traveler, and six million Jews. There are so many terrible images that are burned into the memory, and there are no pictures of many more terrible... 28/01/2025 | 17:03:03 Mister President, In a world full of conflicts, we are talking about probably the most difficult conflict of all conflicts in the world - the conflict between Israel and Palestine, where, if you look at the history of both actors, you can actually understand why they are laying claim to a certain piece of land. We have to understand that Israel is the only real democracy in the region surrounded by autocracy and dictators. I want to thank Ms Saskia KLUIT for the report. Saskia did not try to... 27/01/2025 | 16:51:24 Thank you very much, Mister President. First of all, congratulations to President Theodoros ROUSOPOULOS for his re-election after one very successful year. The world is in a very difficult and dangerous situation. I don't know where we will be in a few years. What I know is that there's a loss of trust in our organisation. In the Council of Europe. My impression is that many more people know our organisation. And we saw the figures the President presented to us. And I think this has to do... 02/10/2024 | 16:06:58 Dear Mister President, (Not only the Socialists but Socialists, Democrats and Greens Group as well! I have to say it! It's important because at the end they will leave ...!) So, I don't understand really this politicisation of this question; this is a very normal procedure. It's maybe the first time and new for us, but it is a very common procedure and you know it, each and every one [of us] should know it from their national parliaments so there is no reason why in this case the group of the... 01/10/2024 | 18:28:09 Dear Mister President, dear colleagues, We have to know that we are not discussing about the conflict between two countries. This is what the government, so-called government of Azerbaijan, wants to say. No, this is not about it. And it's not about criticising the people of Azerbaijan. They are very brave and honest people. It's about a government who has no legitimisation to be a government, because all the elections, whatever we saw, are falsified elections. This is the truth, and this is... 01/10/2024 | 12:23:49 Thank you very much for your encouraging speech. You mentioned the United Nations, and we had the opportunity on different occasions to speak about your experiences in New York. And what is really important is to understand that we have a crisis of international organisations. How could we not have a crisis if we have some crisis in democracies in some countries? But the good thing in this organisation is that we are based on values of democracy, rule of law, and human rights, and we can... 27/06/2024 | 10:19:24 Dear Mister President, dear colleagues, thank you very much. Georgia has been a member of this organisation since 1999, and although it was not always very easy and we had to discuss a lot of things, it was clear that Georgia was going direct way to Europe and in a way to respect our values. And I don't know why Georgia is leaving this way now. This Council of Europe, this Parliamentary Assembly, is the guardian of the values, and because of this we send a clear signal today to Georgia. And I...