03/10/2024 | 11:52:42 Thank you, Chair. Colleagues, I would like to thank everyone who's contributed to this important debate. I would also like to express my thanks to all the members of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights who gave such support to our rapporteur, Mr Knut ABRAHAM in the preparation of his report. The rapporteur organised significant hearings with leading historians from Ukraine and Germany, and the Committee also heard a detailed presentation by the Ukrainian prosecutor general. The... 03/10/2024 | 10:11:12 Apologies, dear colleagues, for the slight time delay that we just experienced. Good morning to all of you. At the request of Mr Knut ABRAHAM, our rapporteur, I'm presenting this report before you on his behalf, as Chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. Our German colleague could not cancel his important engagements at today's German Unity Day after the report was moved from Monday to this morning. Colleagues, the Holodomor was an artificial famine organised by Joseph... 02/10/2024 | 10:05:43 Dear colleagues, People sometimes ask where lies the power of the Council of Europe? They talk of Article 46 of the Convention. They talk of the Committee of Ministers. But they perhaps fail to recognise that the true power lies in the moral authority of this Assembly. It is both a shield and a sword. It is something that has been difficult to acquire and would be all too easy to lose or compromise. In order to maintain that moral authority, we must always ensure that our statements, our... 27/06/2024 | 10:29:54 Thank you, President. Thank you, colleagues. I want to concentrate as much on process as content so far as this issue is concerned. Of course, it's very important to maintain a clear distinction between what might be termed "lobbying" and what can be regarded as the chilling effects of a foreign agents law. Of course, not all foreign agency legislation is going to be unacceptable, but it must meet certain criteria of legality, legitimacy, and indeed, necessity or proportionality. The concern... 26/06/2024 | 18:48:50 Thank you, President. Thank you, colleagues, for all your contributions today. Thank you to those, such as Mr Arkadiusz MULARCZYK who engaged with me during the preparation of this report. That was greatly appreciated. It does appear to me that the difference of opinion that is emerged rests upon a misunderstanding. We're presented with the suggestion that this is black and white. That on the one hand, only the parties will agree to mediation, and that's the end to the matter. On the other... 26/06/2024 | 17:24:32 Thank you, President. Thank you, colleagues. The Council of Europe has a clear role to play in improving reconciliation processes amongst its members. And this is especially true in times of conflict and when there is a climate of growing threats to the rules-based international order, particularly in the wake of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. This makes it ever more important for the Council of Europe to promote tools aimed at the peaceful resolution of disputes. The report... 26/06/2024 | 16:47:30 Thank you, President. Thank you, colleagues. I would like to express my unqualified support for the three rapporteurs and the significant Reports that they've placed before this Assembly. I would also like to thank all colleagues for their contributions during the course of this debate. Mr Davor Ivo STIER's Report addresses a number of critical issues, including first of all, the establishment of an international compensation mechanism for all of the destruction caused by the Russian... 18/04/2024 | 16:58:03 Thank you, Madam Chair. Dear colleagues, I would invite you to support the statutory opinion of the Assembly before you, prepared by Ms Thórhildur Sunna ÆVARSDÓTTIR, which was adopted unanimously by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights. Sunna has closely followed the negotiations leading to the recent adoption of the draft convention, and certainly persuaded the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights to support it after a number of issues were raised by members and debated... 18/04/2024 | 10:41:31 Thank you, President and colleagues. I wish to distinguish two separate and distinct issues. First, the nature of the risk and challenges presented by anthropogenic climate change. Second, the competence of the Council of Europe under the Convention with respect to the contracting parties. I shall begin with the first. The Reykjavík Declaration referred to the triple planetary crisis of pollution, climate change, and loss of biodiversity. The European environment agency climate risk... 17/04/2024 | 17:35:43 Mister President, dear colleagues, We have just jointly debated three reports presented by the Committee that I have the honour to chair. And I would like to express my thanks, first of all, to each of the rapporteurs for the work they have done and to the Secretariat. To debate these three reports together makes eminent sense because they are linked together, as they all relate to the nature of the Putin regime, its aggression and the need to resist its further expansion and attacks on...