23/06/2022 | 12:20:05 Thank you, Mr President. Your Majesty, Madam Secretary General, Dear colleagues, Like many of you have already done, I would like to begin by paying tribute to the families represented here with us. I commend their dignity throughout this process and I also commend their stubborn search for truth. They have the right to truth; the victims have the right to truth. On behalf of the Committee, I wish to extend to them our heartfelt condolences. Those condolences go to the loved ones of those who... 22/06/2022 | 18:41:12 Mister Chairman, I would like to make a brief personal statement. My country, Switzerland, was attacked by Mr Oleksii GONCHARENKO earlier and I would like to respond briefly on behalf of the Swiss delegation that I chair. I will be very brief. Mister President, please, Mr. Oleksii GONCHARENKO has attacked several countries by talking about weapons he allegedly discovered in a tank in Ukraine. In particular, he criticised Switzerland by saying that he had discovered who knows what type of... 21/06/2022 | 19:36:16 Thank you, Mr President. A few messages to simply support on behalf of the Committee, the comments just made by the two rapporteurs and the importance of this work and to thank the two rapporteurs for the excellent work they have done. I believe this has been said by all the speakers, and to emphasise the quality of this work, which is well demonstrated by the Committee's vote, which was unanimous in favour of these two reports. I would also like to thank the Secretariat for the excellent and... 21/06/2022 | 10:57:08 Danke, Herr Präsident. Mr President, 24 February this year was an important turning point in the history of our continent, a fundamental paradigm shift that finally reminds us of the challenges our organisation faced in the 1990s, and that is why our Assembly is right to call for a Summit of Heads of State and Government, as it has already done in several resolutions and as it does again in the resolution before us today. Some people wonder if this is the right time for a summit, but one of... 28/04/2022 | 12:58:51 Gladly, Mr President. You have just seen how it goes, sometimes, in the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, to clarify the points. Like Mr Domagoj HAJDUKOVIĆ, I have a background as a historian and I believe that history will judge what is happening now in Ukraine and the responsibilities, and it will judge extremely severely. But as a historian, I would add that it is not enough for history to judge: it is necessary for people and courts to judge. This is the thrust of the report... 27/04/2022 | 20:15:59 Thank you, Madam President. Basically, this is quite representative, unfortunately, of the way this report has been finalised in the last few weeks, since during the committee meeting, Mr. Oleksandr MEREZHKO, who was on the line from Kiev, had his line interrupted. He was literally under bombardment, and it was our former committee chairman, Mr. Boriss CILEVIČS, who had to present his report in the committee meeting. Then today, as we saw, it was difficult to have a connection with the... 27/04/2022 | 19:17:15 Thank you, Madam President. Yes, Mr Oleksandr MEREZHKO is in Ukraine and he's not in the possibility to connect at the moment. Unfortunately. Until a few minutes ago we were in contact with him but apparently, we cannot connect. If he is connected I will leave him the floor, but if it's not the case. I will make the presentation of his report. That's a pity because it's a lot of work, an important work that Mr Oleksandr MEREZHKO has been doing. "Whether in war or in times of peace, violence... 27/04/2022 | 19:01:16 Thank you, Madam President. On behalf of the Commission, I would like to remind you that the excellent report from our colleague, Senator André VALLINI, is part of a series of previous reports that our Commission has presented with the common objective of fighting organised crime and grand corruption, by attacking it where it hurts, namely in the wallet. The first report in this series was the one by Senator Mart van de Ven, our former colleague, who recalled the Irish model and proposed the... 27/04/2022 | 16:10:09 Thank you, Mr President. In our extraordinary session, we spoke about this brutal attack on international law and on the post-war legal order, and we must, unfortunately, continue to deal with it. We are all the more sorry that this violence was caused by a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, a state that is basically supposed to be one of the guarantors of peace at the international level, and the opposite is happening. Since then, we have seen not only the beginning of... 27/04/2022 | 12:39:33 We believe that the dialogue between this Assembly and the Committee of Ministers, and the country holding the Presidency, is extremely important. My question is similar to those raised by Mr Davor Ivo STIER and by Mr Frank SCHWABE. Basically, we are at a turning point in the history of Europe, a turning point perhaps as important as that of 1989, with the aggression of Russia against Ukraine. We must rethink the Council of Europe. I am glad to hear you say that you support the idea of a...