24/06/2025 | 11:35:21 Dear President, Dear colleagues, it is really an honour to present to you today this draft resolution on the legal and human rights aspects of the Russian Federation's aggression against Ukraine. We all have an obligation to defend the principles and values on which the international order stands and upon which European freedom rests. We all have an obligation to defend Ukraine, and this is how we do our part. The draft resolution before you today is the third in the so to say, series of... 29/01/2025 | 17:00:51 Thank you. "I am Georgian, therefore I am European" [spoken in Georgian]. This is what then-Georgian speaker of Parliament Mr Zurab ZHVANIA declared in this very hemicycle upon Georgia's accession to the Council of Europe in 1999. This belief, this is a declaration of identity. And this has been the cornerstone for generations of Georgians who have struggled for their country's freedom, to free their country from Russian imperial domination attempts: Tsarist Russia, Soviet Russia and now... 30/09/2024 | 15:56:51 Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Iulian, for a nice progress report. I would like to agree with you that perhaps it's not really proper to call it a "progress report", it's a little ambitious but an "activity report". We have, indeed, done some good work here, but a lot remains not done. Now, Ian, thank you for your service, as they say. On the one hand, I do agree with you that maybe we are not heard enough, and maybe some of the reports that we pass here, sometimes unanimously, do not have a... 17/04/2024 | 16:02:13 Thank you, President, Dear colleagues, as you heard this afternoon we discussed three reports dealing with different aspects of the war on democracy waged by Vladimir Putin's criminal regime, and I am not using some weird metaphor, but this is actually language from one of the reports that we have on hand today. My own contribution to this debate relates to the persecution of our colleague, our friend Vladimir Kara-Murza and the need to hold to account all participants of his persecution. But... 26/01/2023 | 10:50:28 Thank you, Mister President. First I would like to congratulate Mr Damien COTTIER for this very important report. We are quite pleased with the outcome. The Russian-escalated war of aggression against Ukraine has lasted for almost a year and it feels like a long time, but it's not. For anyone between Russia and Germany this is unfortunately a regular occurrence. Because there is a tradition of Russian imperial aggressive wars against its neighbours going back to at least 1918. It's at least a... 12/10/2022 | 17:56:50 Thank you, Chair. Dear colleagues, I will be very short. I think we have covered most what we wanted to cover. Based on the conversation we had here I do not assume that we will solve any problems of Hungary during this debate. I'm a surprised by the response from the Hungarian delegation, from the Coalition members to our report. During our conversations in the Committees and with them in Budapest, the conversation was much more about the substance and legalities of the wording. We stand, of... 12/10/2022 | 17:11:10 Thank you Chair. Dear Colleagues, After the previous debate I'm happy to say that thankfully our report doesn't cover anything regarding human organs trafficking. That makes me already quite relieved. But to be serious, I as well would like to thank our Hungarian hosts, who received us in Budapest, for the frank conversations we had with them. As you will notice reading the report, there remains a quite a number of issues where we agreed to disagree with the Hungarian government. However... 11/10/2022 | 19:57:41 Dear Chair, Dear Colleagues, Unfortunately, we have, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, and me personally, we have quite a bit of problems with this report not because we do not support the freedom of movement and not because we don't support human rights and liberal values. Let's start with the actual title of the report. Now the resolution, it says, "Misuse of the Schengen Information system by Council of Europe member States as a politically-motivated sanction" as if it's...