25/06/2019 | 11:25:38 Yes, thank you, President. I will try to react briefly to a few things that have been said in the debate and I thank everyone who took the time to speak in this session. I heard the proposition that the EU and the Council of Europe should work together on the issues of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. You know that the EU has taken initiatives in this respect and we had a report on this in April but I completely agree with my colleague who says that we should really work to push... 25/06/2019 | 10:29:46 Thank you, Mrs President, and I also promise you that this is the last time that I will be standing here in front of you. So, I have had the honour to be able to present a progress report on the activities of the Bureau and the Standing Committee since the 12th of April, until today. Well, since the beginning of this reporting period, a lot has happened at a political level in Europe. I want to elaborate on two trends that I have been observing during this period: First, we have been living... 24/06/2019 | 19:53:10 Thank you, Chair. Thank you all for contributing to this debate. I heard a lot of colleagues speak with passion, with emotion, but with honesty and integrity, and I think we all want the same thing. That is, to uphold our values and fight for Human Rights. We may differ on the ways to get there, and I want to stress that we don't have to have seen this debate as pro-Russia or against Russia. And everybody who expressed him or herself, did this really with honesty and from their deepest... 24/06/2019 | 16:04:50 Dear Colleagues, The report I have the honour to present today to the Assembly concludes a long reflection that the Rules Committee began exactly one year ago as part of a long process that the Assembly started more than three years ago. This has not been an easy process and I would like to thank the members of the Rules Committee for the confidence they have placed in me and for their support. A whole train of thought has been going on now for three years. It started in the framework of a... 12/04/2019 | 10:46:19 Colleagues, thank you for your interventions, which have confirmed the position of the committee that approved the report. I want to address some of the points that stuck in my mind in the debate. First, I will address Mr Pierre-Alain FRIDEZ's amendment, which would introduce “as far as possible”. I remind you that the article says that the rights of the child include the right to know his or her origins – the parents – as far as possible, and have been used against the lifting of anonymity... 12/04/2019 | 10:15:06 I thank colleagues for being here for this debate, which is an important one for the people concerned. If we vote for the recommendation, it will change the lives of future donor-conceived children in Europe. Let me remind you how the report began. In 2017, my colleague Ms Sabien LAHAYE-BATTHEU, from the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, tabled a motion to evaluate the different practices concerning the use of donor gametes and embryos in assisted reproduction across member... 11/04/2019 | 18:32:52 I have been listening carefully to all of you, dear colleagues, and we will of course discuss the amendments, when many of the issues raised will return. I took up this report because we heard testimonials of mental health problems, depression and suicides in the camp of Moria. When I was in Moria, I talked to doctors who said they were burned out because they could not handle the work; there is so much suffering there that is not dealt with. I talked to an imam, a volunteer who was just... 11/04/2019 | 17:31:32 In July last year, I visited a reception and identification centre at Moria, Lesbos, in the context of this report. “Reception and identification centre” is the official, formal term, but the term “hotspot” is more commonly used and sadly better reflects the reality of the centres. Sadly, the Greek hotspots do indeed honour their name, first and foremost because they are overcrowded. Whereas originally the five hotspot centres should have housed 7 500 people, their capacity was reduced to 5... 11/04/2019 | 11:40:10 This institution faces important challenges and should increase its resilience to continue defending its core values of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, which are all under threat from both outside and inside our member States and the Parliamentary Assembly. That is why the Assembly and the ad hoc committee last year gathered proposals from all political groups and national delegations and mandated our committee to think about how to improve the Rules of Procedure in order to... 09/04/2019 | 17:37:47 Thank you, colleagues, for an interesting and constructive discussion and for the positive reactions to the report, which I guess is important in view of our relationship with the European Union and the mechanisms it is developing. I now wish to address a few points, which most of you have also, of course, mentioned. First, this is not the first debate on the danger of duplication and the risk of forum shopping, double standards and so on. This Assembly has discussed this matter before. The...