10/10/2023 | 18:02:09 Thank you, Madam President, Ladies and gentlemen, The report deals with the greatest danger to our democracy in Europe - the danger of right-wing extremism. Right-wing extremism is a danger because it has consequences that are very concrete and that are very threatening, and I am also very grateful to the Rapporteur for taking up the case of Walter Lübcke - the district president of Kassel, a German region - who was murdered by a neo-Nazis in 2019 because he stood up for refugees. This shows... 19/06/2023 | 15:21:10 Thank you, Mister President. Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Colleagues, Our Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has 306 members and 306 deputies; that is the number of people who died last Wednesday off the Greek coast. With every person who dies in the Mediterranean, a piece of the European civilisation that we are here to defend also dies. It is enough to imagine that we were in that boat to understand. This fundamental rupture of civilisation on the Mediterranean must finally end... 26/01/2023 | 17:14:15 Thank you very much, Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen, On behalf of the Group of the Socialists, Democrats and Greens in this Parliamentary Assembly, I would like to express very clear solidarity with the previous speaker and his party, the opposition party HDP in Turkey. We, the Group of Socialists, Democrats and Greens in this Parliamentary Assembly, are shocked by this ban on the HDP and consider it incompatible with the spirit of this Council of Europe and with the spirit of the... 24/01/2023 | 18:09:07 Thank you, Madam President, Ladies and Gentlemen, Good evening, It was a load off my mind when I read this report, because it is excellent. It is also excellent because it underlines what role we have as the Parliamentary Assembly, as a role of parliamentarians representing the people from our member States. I would also like to comment here today that I think it is a shame that the breadth of society was not represented all the way to this summit. If we look at the High-level Reflection... 13/10/2022 | 15:34:20 Thank you very much, Mr President, Ladies and gentlemen, In 1992, the very first EuroPride took place in London. At a time when homosexual acts were still criminalized in 17 states of this present organisation. At that time, hundreds of thousands of courageous people marched through central London, in 1992. They paved the way. They paved the way for homosexual acts to be legal today in all 46 member states of this organisation. They also paved the way for this organisation to take up the... 12/10/2022 | 11:58:39 Thank you very much, Mister President, Ladies and Gentlemen, I must say that when I listen to the debate here, I have a different understanding of this organisation than many other colleagues have. My generation, of course, inherited this Council of Europe, and I believe that a fundamental insight of this organisation is that the nation state alone cannot simply defend human rights, democracy and freedom on its own, but that it needs an association of states as a guardian, an association of... 21/06/2022 | 10:40:13 Thank you very much, Mister President, Dear Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen, The war in Ukraine has not just been going on for four months. It began in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea in violation of international law, and it began in response to everything that this House stands for here. It began as a reaction to the courageous young people, in particular, who fought for their democracy and their freedom on the Euromaidan with the power of song and with the power of peaceful protest... 27/04/2022 | 10:54:56 Dear Mister President, Dear Colleagues, On 15 March of this year, we as the Parliamentary Assembly decided that Russia should be expelled from the Council of Europe. This is not news for us here. Unfortunately, what reached the European public shows how well the propaganda of the Kremlin, the propaganda of Russia, the propaganda of the Putin system works in Europe, because the result that arrived to the public was that Russia left voluntarily. That is wrong. I think it is important that we... 26/04/2022 | 11:06:16 Thank you very much, Mr President, Ladies and gentlemen, We have just heard it from our colleague from France, but it does not only apply to France; it applies to all of us. Democracy in Europe is in danger in many different places. And that is the challenge that we, as the Council of Europe, must now urgently face, also against the backdrop of these past elections, against the backdrop of a strengthening right everywhere in Europe. It is important that we, as Europeans, stand together. But... 15/03/2022 | 10:17:33 Thank you very much, Mister President. Dear Colleagues, It is an honor for me, as a new member in this Assembly, to be able to speak also after brave colleagues from Ukraine, because what we have heard shows yes, they are defending your country. They are also defending democracy and the rule of law for all people in Europe. We have to be grateful to them for that. We all feel this is a historic meeting today, and historic is also what the Europeans show in this time also away from the...