30/01/2020 | 18:36:06 Mr. President, Dear colleagues. I deliberately do not want to go into detail about individual countries in the short time available this evening, other speakers will certainly do that, but would like to deal once again with the role and significance of the monitoring procedure, which is also central to the work of our Assembly. I stress that the monitoring procedure is an essential part of the success story of this Parliamentary Assembly. It has existed in its present form since 1997; its... 30/01/2020 | 16:22:39 I must now interrupt the list of speakers as previously announced. The speeches of members on the speakers list that have been present during the debate but have not been able to speak may be given to the table office for publication in the official report. I remind colleagues that the typewritten text can be submitted electronically if possible no later than four hours after the list of speakers is interrupted. I remind you that at the end of the current affairs debate the Assembly is not... 30/01/2020 | 12:46:37 Okay, I shall now put the amendment to the vote. The vote is open. The vote is closed. The amendment is adopted. We will now proceed to vote on the draft recommendation contained in document 15021 as amended. May I remind you as a two third majority is required, I am counting only affirmative and negative votes. The vote is open. The vote is closed. The draft recommendation is adopted with the majority required. The Assembly will hold its next public sitting this afternoon at 3: 30 p.m. with... 30/01/2020 | 12:36:38 Thank you, Mr Chairman. The debate is closed. The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights has presented a draft resolution to which seven amendments have been tabled. The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights has also presented a draft recommendation to which one amendment has been tabled. We will first consider the amendments to the draft resolution and then the amendment to the draft recommendation. They will be taken in the order in which they appear in the compendium. I remind... 29/01/2020 | 18:23:32 Ladies and gentlemen, This afternoon we'll have a debate on the report from the Monitoring Committee regarding the challenge to credentials on substantive grounds under Rule 8. The Assembly will then decide this afternoon on the challenge. I remind you that members whose credentials are challenged may sit provisionally with the same rights as other Assembly members. The report is entitled Challenge on substantive grounds of the still unratified credentials of the parliamentary delegation of... 29/01/2020 | 17:55:55 Mr President. Dear colleagues, thank you very much. I do not want to go into the details of the report but I want just to remind us once again about the starting point, about the objectives and about what we have been able to achieve. I think we committed to build a more robust mechanism that would enable us to act in conjunction between the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly in cases of severe violations of core principles of the Council of Europe. We wanted to do this... 28/01/2020 | 10:44:14 Mr President, Dear Colleagues, Poland is an important and proud European country with a chequered history, and I say this here as a representative of the German delegation. But Poland has also made an outstanding contribution to the Solidarność movement in 1989/90. The unforgotten Prime Minister Mazowiecki took an important step to enabling us to overcome the divisions of Europe and moving towards the return of freedom and democracy to the eastern part of our continent. Colleagues, we are... 02/10/2019 | 16:14:54 Madam President, Mr Governor Wenzel, Dear colleagues, With a balance sheet total of approximately €24 billion and almost 8,000 ongoing projects, the Council of Europe Development Bank is a comparatively small player compared to other European and international development banks. Even within our Parliamentary Assembly and in our member states, its visibility can certainly still be enhanced. It has been said that not all member states of the Council of Europe are members of the Bank, and I feel... 02/10/2019 | 12:21:10 Madame President, Mrs Secretary General, I would like to wish you a very warm welcome on behalf of the German delegation. We wish you luck and much success in this task. A key issue in this House over the last few months has been how to avert an institutional conflict –which threatened to unfold–between the Parliamentary Assembly and the Committee of Ministers. We have made good progress there. We are also experiencing these days that progress is also being made in the conflict in Ukraine... 30/09/2019 | 16:07:35 Mr President. Dear colleagues, Let me return to a point in this agenda item, called the Progress Report, which the rapporteur also mentioned this morning and which played a role in the discussion. In January, during an urgent debate, where I was also the rapporteur in charge, we discussed the events in the Sea of Azov along the Kerch Strait. We passed Resolution 2259, which specifically called for the release of the 24 Ukrainian marines who were captured during these incidents. As you all...