20/06/2022 | 12:15:41 Thank you very much Mr President, From my group, the Group of the European People's Party, the first thing that we have to do of course is support the report of Mr Aleksander POCIEJ and also the various comments that have been made by Ms Petra BAYR with regards to the elections in Serbia. I'd like to focus on three things: on the fourth summit for renovation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. I think change is extremely important and indeed several European organisations... 26/04/2022 | 12:33:15 Thank you, Mister President. I want to ask the Commissioner if there were signs of this brutal genocide, of these brutal things that we have seen, and the genocide, and the rape and so on, in the Ukrainian war, if there were signs before in Russia that the alarm system didn't show. This report doesn't show what happened afterwards. The alarm system of the Assembly should be more sensitive to a question that affects one of the biggest contributors of this Assembly, which was Russia. We were... 15/03/2022 | 11:27:56 Madam President. Many generations of Europeans such as my own have lived with war. My father experienced the Spanish Civil War and those of his generation the Second World War. We've all witnessed wars in the Balkans and the Caucasus. Even then, we believed that by denying the existence of evil, it would disappear. We do not live in a law- and rule-based world. The Helsinki Final Act signed by all countries in 1975 did not put an end to the revision of borders. The fall of the Berlin Wall did... 21/06/2021 | 19:49:22 Thank you, Mr Chairman. What happened in Catalunya in these dark times for Europe was an atrocious persecution of minorities. This is an Assembly which is especially attached to minorities. We have a non-nationalist, a non-separatist minority which goes from the extreme left to the extreme right. That minority was persecuted. Their rights were trampled on. Their rights in parliament were silenced by imposing a totalitarian doctrine [upon them]. And this happened on the days of 6th and 7th... 21/06/2021 | 19:46:05 Thank you, Madam Président, What is being proposed here in Mr Boriss CILEVIČS's text is quite incredible – that a political assembly requests some independent courts to no longer prosecute crimes. This could happen in dictatorial or authoritarian countries – but never in a democracy. Spain is a consolidated democracy, its courts are independent; we have prosecuting attorneys. Everyone who is prosecuted for a crime has their own rights, and their right to a defence. That a political assembly... 21/06/2021 | 19:39:23 Once again we come back to this issue of pardons. In this amendment what is being established is the crime of corruption and the ruling handed down against those who promoted those illegal acts in October, in spite of the fact that the rapporteur denies this. They are requesting the sentence be overturned as well as everything having to do with wasting public money and using it for reasons for which it was not earmarked. The GRECO Committee of this Committee refuses to contemplate any type of... 21/06/2021 | 19:32:57 In this amendment what we refuse to accept is the idea that there be no type of presidential pardon for politicians that have been condemned for major crimes and that have said they would go on to do exactly the same again. They have said they are not sorry for anything, they would repeat their acts, and moreover with reports against them both by the Supreme Court of Spain and the prosecuting authorities. How can we then propose to have a pardon or amnesty for politicians that have been... 21/06/2021 | 18:49:01 President, the report hides that the politicians were prosecuted because of their acts, not because of their statements. Their acts against the law. Not because of their statements. Politicians in prison are also in Latvia ,Mr Boriss CILEVIČS. In Latvia there are politicians in prison. The report accepts that the territorial unity of a country could be broken by an elected authority against the constitution and against the rule of law. The report is against the Venice Commission that said...