22/06/2023 | 16:27:13 Thank you, Tiny. Dear colleagues, Our group is not unanimous on the issue of the athletes. Some of us are following the opinion of their rapporteur. Some others have a different opinion. Take note that I'm not speaking about a majority. We didn't put that to the vote, because we did not want it to be a divisive issue diverting us from supporting the values of this Organisation and supporting Ukraine. But this is exactly my point. The discussion with this report is very divisive. Not among us... 21/06/2023 | 15:57:33 Thank you, Tiny. First of all, I would like to congratulate and commend the rapporteur for the clarity of her presentation. I reminded, also, the colleagues at the meeting of the Rules Committee that the most known passage we have from the Athenian orator Demosthenes is one saying that we need money if we want our goals to be fulfilled. What I'd like to commend most of all on her presentation is exactly that she made clear that the very ambitious goals we have set at the Reykjavík Summit must... 20/06/2023 | 17:41:41 Thank you, Madam Chair. Why do we have this debate? Mr Pieter OMTZIGT has said, and this is the first reason, that the situation regarding the rule of law in Poland has not got better but worse. Is there a liberal international conspiracy against Poland? Then, if this is the case, why is Poland's Commissioner for Human Rights even raising issues regarding the recent reform of the electoral law of March? Dear colleagues, There is a new term in constitutional law. It is called autocratic... 25/04/2023 | 18:32:47 Thank you. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. The first thing I would like to do and I admit it due to the limitation of time is to thank Ms Eleanor HOURIGAN from the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights for her valuable contribution to this report. Then I would like to thank all of you who spoke with good words for this work of mine, and I will just try to reply only to direct questions that have been posed to me and some more general remarks. I begin by the general remarks I would... 25/04/2023 | 17:16:16 Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I had the idea to propose, by a motion, this subject to discussion for a resolution, exactly because we see tension arising among the courts of the three parallel legal systems we have in our continent. We have the national legal systems; having a supreme norm, the constitution; we have, of course, our European Convention of Human Rights, and the court as the arbiter of this system, and we have also the European Union law and the Court of the European Union... 25/04/2023 | 16:19:10 Thank you very much, Mr Tiny KOX. First of all, I must tell you that we are all grateful to the Icelandic government, to you personally for your leadership, which made the "Road to Reykjavík" possible, and also to Ms Fiona O'LOUGHLIN for an excellent report. Ms Fiona O'LOUGHLIN makes explicit reference both to social inequalities and to democratic backsliding. I think that these two phenomena are interconnected. Pope Francis has reminded us that inequality kills, Oxfam that the wealth of just... 26/01/2023 | 19:23:59 Thank you very much, Mister Chairman. When we were discussing the situation in Kosovo, I mentioned the old saying that the Balkans have been the powdered keg of Europe. The Caucasus risks being another area that could be explosive in the years to come for similar reasons: the existence of minorities and disputed territories. We are not discussing here, of course, the geopolitical aspects of the conflict, just the humanitarian ones. We must have in mind that in all situations, respect for... 26/01/2023 | 10:39:41 Dear Colleagues, Recently, the President of our Assembly suggested to me to read again the preamble of the Statutes of our organisation. There, I found this remarkable phrase that it is very pertinent to what we are discussing. I quote: "Peace based upon justice and international cooperation is vital for the preservation of human society and civilisation". Exactly for this reason, because peace, and justice, and international co‑operation cannot be dissociated, we remain very skeptical for... 25/01/2023 | 15:48:06 Thank you very much, Madam Chair. The Balkans used to be called the Powder Keg of Europe. Unfortunately, they have still explosive potential. It is not limited to the Balkans. Again, unfortunately, the status of minorities throughout Europe is becoming a factor of destabilisation to an extent that reminds the situation before the second World War. However, in the case of Kosovo, there is some light. It seems, after the recent declaration by the President of Serbia that re-examines their... 23/01/2023 | 15:35:24 Thank you very much Mr Chairman. Allow me to express my warm congratulations for your reelection. It's going to be difficult to have a second mandate [which is] more successful than the first one, but I would like to wish you this too. So the Bureau appointed me as Rapporteur for this report which covers the period from October practically to this day. It's going to be a very pedantic and futile exercise to refer to all that we have done at the Bureau, so I'm going to stick to the essential...