30/09/2025 | 19:13:50 Thank you very much. I enjoyed this debate quite a bit. I think it's the first time ever anyone has accused me of being woke, which is an interesting feeling. I do not really want to start to defend the report, but I'll give you one example. One of you, Ms Katalin CSÖBÖR, I think, said that we do not acknowledge that the EU Justice Scoreboard recognises the progress in judicial effectiveness. And I'll just read you one paragraph. I am quoting our report. The judicial system in Hungary is... 30/09/2025 | 18:03:43 Dear colleagues, Today, we present the key findings of the Monitoring Committee's report on Hungary, which reflects our ongoing responsibility to ensure that every member state upholds the fundamental values of the Council of Europe: democracy, the rule of law and human rights. Hungary has been under a full monitoring procedure since 2022 due to what this Assembly called "systemic concerns". While in this report we acknowledge some progress – most notably, recent judicial reforms aligned with... 26/06/2025 | 17:50:32 Thank you, Mister President. And dear colleagues, My speech will not be for the faint-hearted, but neither is the situation in Georgia today. And my question to you is: what else needs to happen in Georgia before we actually stand up and do something about it? I would, of course, also like to ask you to call the events with the right words. We use the word "democratic backsliding". It's not democratic backsliding. What we are watching in real time is a Russian-style – probably also Russia... 24/06/2025 | 18:10:24 Yes, thank you. Did I lose 20 seconds? No. I want to start by thanking all the Ukrainians for their help. And actually they are doing the main job. I mean, we are thanking each other, but it's actually a minute thing that we are doing. Thanks to the Ukrainians we are still here today and talking about it. So this was a quite depressing debate. We have been debating in a similar manner for the last three years. We repeat, describe what's going on in Ukraine, it's horrific. And then at the same... 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...