16/05/2012 Standing Committee
Strasbourg, 16.05.2012 – The priorities of Albania during its forthcoming Chairmanship of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers will be discussed at a meeting of the Standing Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) in Tirana on Friday 25 May 2012.
Albanian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Edmond Haxhinasto will hold an exchange of views with the committee, which brings together around 60 parliamentarians from the Council of Europe’s 47 member states. The Speaker of the Assembly of the Republic of Albania Jozefina Çoba Topalli will earlier deliver a welcome address.
The parliamentarians are also due to debate a report on Jewish cemeteries and another on protecting and ensuring access to historically or culturally significant films, television and radio broadcasts, audio recordings and photographs. They will also discuss the Assembly’s observation of the recent elections in Serbia and in Armenia, and are due to approve an opinion on a draft protocol to streamline and modernise the 1957 European Convention on Extradition.
The Standing Committee acts in the name of the full Assembly between plenary sessions and traditionally meets in the country taking up the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers. Albania takes over the Chairmanship from the United Kingdom on 23 May.
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The meeting, which is open to the press (no accreditation necessary), begins at 9 a.m. at the Tirana International Hotel and Conference Centre, Skanderbeg Square 8. Press stand-ups may be arranged on the spot, as required.