26/06/2019 | 10:47:29 Thank you Madam President. I would first like to congratulate the rapporteur on her excellent report and her excellent work on this issue. It is very important. People with mental disorders or conditions and psychosocial disabilities are denied many of our most fundamental rights. Even today. Our organisation, for some reason, is not helping. The rights that these people are denied consist of some of our most fundamental values, like the right to personal autonomy, the right to health, the... 24/06/2019 | 18:36:16 Dear Colleagues. First of all, I would like to say that debating very conscientious issues like this is made much more difficult if people that oppose your view call you a traitor, and make it up so that if the opposition of their opinion is the equality or equals being a traitor to the organisation that you belong to. Being somebody that wants to destroy Europe, somebody that wants to destroy this organisation that we belong to. That is not a good foundation for constructive and democratic... 12/04/2019 | 10:43:16 I congratulate the rapporteur on an excellent report. It is relevant that we are considering this issue. It is important that we approve this report because of the right of the child – the right of all of us to know our origins. I am privileged in knowing where I come from and why I look the way I do. I was called Ivarina when I was little because I was so similar to my father. Where you come from and your genealogy shapes the way you are, how you think about yourself and the world as you see... 11/04/2019 | 17:06:36 Organised crime, corruption, and money laundering are an increasingly deadly poison running through the veins of public life. If they continue to spread, they will sicken our democracies and eventually kill them. Those crimes steal public money, subvert the rule of law and destabilise democratic institutions. They destroy public confidence in democracy and open the door to populism and extremism. The fight against organised crime, corruption and money laundering is thus core business for this... 11/04/2019 | 10:30:49 I will focus on two aspects of Rule 19 – first on a procedural note, then on a substantive note. On the procedure, the report suggests an increase in the number of members needed to form a new political group to 5% of the Assembly. We have reached a good compromise to keep the number at 28 from eight national delegations. That is a good way to prevent groups from being formed frivolously, wasting the resources of this Assembly and its staff members’ time. I encourage the members of the... 10/04/2019 | 17:34:43 I believe that the report’s fundamental content and its most important message is the call for enhanced co-operation with the Committee of Ministers. During my rather short stay here, I have experienced and witnessed a growing divide between two important bodies of the Council of Europe – the Parliamentary Assembly and the Committee of Ministers – and their apparent inability to reach a common conclusion about the problem we face: how to tackle those states that appear not to respect our... 09/04/2019 | 19:10:23 I thank all the speakers for an interesting debate. I would like to address all contributions but will have to restrict myself to responding to just a few in the interests of time. I thank Ms Béatrice FRESKO-ROLFO, Ms Stella KYRIAKIDES, Ms Tamar CHUGOSHVILI and Ms Ioanneta KAVVADIA for pointing out some very important aspects: the normalisation of sexist behaviour being a great danger to democracy; sexual harassment having to do with dominance more than anything else; the toughness women are... 09/04/2019 | 17:55:55 Thank you, Madam President, for your kind co-operation with the report. Article 1 of the German constitution reads: “Die Würde des Menschen ist unantastbar. Sie zu achten und zu schützen ist Verpflichtung aller staatlichen Gewalt.” Loosely translated, it means that human dignity is inviolable and that protecting and furthering it is the duty of us all. Inherent in that principle, which has deeply influenced me throughout my career, is the ability for women to work and take part in democratic... 09/04/2019 | 15:49:54 Today I have the pleasure to present the opinion by our committee colleague Lord Richard BALFE, who had to leave Strasbourg this morning because of other international commitments. The report by Ms Petra De SUTTER examines in detail the initiative taken by the European Parliament in its resolution of 25 October 2016 on the establishment of a European Union mechanism on democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental rights. It examines at length the possible impact of the proposed mechanism on... 08/04/2019 | 16:13:36 Madam Commissioner, thank you for your excellent speech. The Committee of Ministers has adopted a recommendation on preventing and combating sexism. For the first time ever, sexism has been defined in a dedicated legal instrument to tackle it. Tomorrow we will debate my report on promoting parliaments that are free of sexism and sexual harassment, and I am aware that you have been doing work on tackling violence against women and girls. It is vital for us to work together to further this...