11/03/2005 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE’s rapporteur on European deltas Leo Platvoet (Netherlands, UEL) has just returned from a fact-finding visit to the Ebro Delta in Spain (3-4 March 2005), where he saw at first hand how the construction of upstream barrages has reduced natural sedimentation, contributing to major erosion of the delta, which is a protected area and home to many rare bird species. “Some 50,000 people live in the delta region, however, and this must also be taken into account in any plan to preserve this ecosystem,” pointed out Mr Platvoet, who met local mayors, farmers and hunters as well as environmental campaigners. He has also visited the Po and Danube Deltas for his report, which is due before the summer.
16/12/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The Committee on Social Affairs, mmeting today in Paris, adopted draft resolution on "Assistance to patients at end of life". The text, prepared by Dick Marty (Switzerland, LDR), propose that Council of Europe member States define and implement "a genuine policy of assistance to patients at end of life which does not cause them to want to die". It therefore propose measures such as the promotion of palliative treatment, bearing in mind that the aim is to alleviate the patient’s suffering, while also realising that it may shorten his or her life in certain cases, and the development of codes of medical ethics to avoid superfluous treatments which can be regarded as over-zealous prolongation of life. The text underlines the right of any patient "capable of discernment, being fully aware of the facts, to decline the treatment proposed".
29/10/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
An expert from Russian oil company Lukoil and a representative of the Council of Baltic Sea States discuss the environmental impact of this planned oil extraction operation in the Baltic, close to a UNESCO world heritage site at a meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs in Paris on 4 November. An outline report by Daniel Goulet (France, LDR) explains the background.
21/09/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Local authorities from the countries around the Adriatic basin could work together for the sustainable development of their common sea using Council of Europe expertise and EU finance, according to the head of the Italian delegation to PACE Claudio Azzolini. He was speaking at a colloquy held at Chioggia in the Venice Lagoon, attended by representatives from Albania, Croatia, Italy, Serbia and Montenegro and Slovenia.
21/09/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE’s Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, together with the Sub-Committee on Population of its Migration Committee, are jointly organising in Bratislava on 23-24 September a parliamentary seminar to prepare the European Population Conference 2005. This conference, co-hosted by the Assembly in Strasbourg from 7-8 April 2005, will provide a forum for dialogue between demographers and policy-makers Europe-wide on the theme “Demographic challenges for social cohesion”. This preparatory seminar, which focuses on the problems of central and eastern Europe, will discuss in turn changing family formations, ageing, the impact of migration and vulnerable population groups.
20/09/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE’s Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee will hold in Bratislava on 22 September an exchange of views on a memorandum on Assistance to ill persons at the end of life by Dick Marty (Switzerland, LDR). Following a plenary debate in April 2004 on Mr Marty’s earlier report on Euthanasia, the Assembly voted to refer it back to the committee, recommending “a new text which brings together the widely diverging approaches expressed during the debate”. The committee will also discuss two petitions, one on Dutch-speakers’ and the other on French-speakers’ right to medical care in Brussels and surrounding regions. The committee will also be informed by Michael Hancock (United Kingdom, LDR) of his recent visit to Bulgaria to follow up his report on Improving the lot of abandoned children in institutions.
16/09/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Final agreement within the World Trade Organisation on the so-called “Doha development agenda” is urgently needed if the quickening process of globalisation is to benefit all the world’s population, PACE’s Economic Affairs Committee said in a draft report approved yesterday. The report, by Kimmo Sasi (Finland, EPP/CD), welcomed the interim agreement reached by WTO members in Geneva in July 2004. WTO Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi will take part in the plenary debate on the report, provisionally scheduled for Monday 4 October 2004.
09/09/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Europe should not “play with fire”, parliamentarians were told at a hearing on the question of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) organised by the Assembly’s Environment Committee in Paris yesterday. Several Assembly members considered that the potential risks were much harder to pin down than the benefits. The committee had invited a number of experts to the hearing to share their views on the risks and benefits of “crop engineering” for a report being prepared by Wolfgang Wodarg (Germany, SOC).
05/07/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Michael Hancock (United Kingdom, LDR), who is assessing the follow-up to the Assembly’s April 2003 recommendation on “Improving the lot of abandoned children in institutions” for the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, will visit Bulgaria from 24 to 27 August. Accompanied by Bulgarian Assembly member Darinka Stantcheva, he is due to visit a number of orphanages and day-care centres in Sofia as well as meeting government ministers and other authorities responsible for childrens’ matters and childrens’ NGOs.
23/06/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The Parliamentary Assembly today called on European governments to institute a total, Europe-wide ban on the corporal punishment of children, enforced in national legislation. "It is a shame that the smallest and most fragile of Europe's citizens should have to wait until last to have their protection guaranteed," said Helena Bargholtz (Sweden, LDR), presenting her report. While all 45 member states of the Council of Europe have banned corporal punishment in schools, only a minority have formally prohibited it in the family and in all other settings – as they are required to do under international agreements, she pointed out. In its recommendation, the Assembly called for Europe to be made a “corporal-punishment-free zone” for children.
22/06/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The Assembly sees recent EU enlargement – which brought eight of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 'countries of operation' into the Union – as a vindication of the EBRD’s major contribution to European integration. It called for the Bank to put a growing emphasis on the remaining non-EU states, in particular those which are less developed, and commend it on the link it makes between progress in human rights, democracy and the rule of law, on the one hand, and economic development on the other. However, the Assembly deplored developments in countries at the bottom of the Bank’s 'constitutional liberalism index', such as Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Belarus.
21/06/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The procedure of joining the European Union’s Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) promises to be anything but easy for the new EU members, placing great strain on their currency stability and public finances. According to the Assembly, it is “vital that the terms for joining the EMU be made sufficiently flexible”. For instance, by having the permitted range of fluctuation in the Exchange Rate Mechanism be the wider range used at the currency’s launch in 1999. Adopting the rapporteur's (Robert Walter, UK, EDG) proposals on The Euro and the Greater Europe, the Assembly stressed the importance of ensuring observance of the Stability and Growth Act. “As long as the Pact exists in its current form, it should be respected. However, urgent thought must be given to ways of improving the Pact, both to make it better heeded and to improve its functioning”, it said.