29/03/2010 | President
“Political reconciliation is rooted in our Organisation and is part of its DNA,” said PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu, speaking at the 122nd Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, being held in Bangkok. “Reconciliation has always been the 'raison d’être’ of the Council of Europe. The fundamental values that we support and promote - democracy, human rights and the rule of law - are the aim of our Organisation, but they are also a means to an end: namely, reconciliation and long-lasting peace on our continent,” he added.
25/03/2010 | President
PACE President, Mevlüt Çavusoglu, has warmly welcomed the imminent setting up of a parliamentary committee in Moldova to revise Article 78 of the Constitution – concerning the election of the President of the Republic – and said it was “encouraging” that all political forces, including the opposition, have designated representatives to it.
23/03/2010 | President
"The Council of Europe strongly condemns the executions of Andrei Zhuk and Vasily Yuzepchuk in Belarus," declared today the Chair of the Committee of Ministers Micheline Calmy-Rey, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly Mevlüt Çavusoglu, and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjørn Jagland.
19/03/2010 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu will make an official visit to Moldova from 22 to 25 March 2010, where he aims to promote stability and fully functioning democratic institutions, and contribute to moving the current political situation in the country forward.
18/03/2010 | President
PACE’s Presidential Committee, headed by its President Mevlüt Çavusoglu, today met in Paris with Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, the current Chair of the Committee of Ministers, and its next Chair the Foreign Minister of “the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" Antonio Milososki, as well as members of the Bureau of the Committee of Ministers, in the presence of Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjörn Jagland.
16/03/2010 | President
“I came to Kazakhstan with an offer to upgrade co-operation with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and I am very glad that we found full understanding with the highest authorities of the country on this matter,” declared the Assembly’s President Mevlüt Çavusoglu at the end of an official visit to Kazakhstan on 15-16 March 2010.
12/03/2010 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu is to make an official visit to Kazakhstan from 15 to 18 March. Meetings are scheduled with the President of the Republic, Nursultan Nazarbayev, the Chairman of Mazhilis (lower House of Parliament), Ural Muhamedzhanov, the Chairman of the Senate, Kassym-Zhomart Tokayev, and with the State Secretary and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Kanat Saudabayev.
09/03/2010 | President
“One of the priorities of my presidency is to strengthen co-operation with the European Parliament, in particular through PACE involvement in the recently set-up parliamentary branch of the Eastern Partnership Initiative Euronid, through more regular committee meetings and closer contacts between PACE and EP rapporteurs,” the President of the Parliamentary Assembly Mevlüt Cavusoglu said at the end of meetings with the President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek and leaders of the EP’s political groups in Strasbourg on 8-9 March.
05/03/2010 | President
PACE President, Mevlüt Çavusoglu, will be holding talks with the President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, in Strasbourg on 8 March 2010. On the same day and the following day, 9 March, Mr Çavusoglu will also be meeting the leaders of the political groups in the European Parliament: Joseph Daul (EPP), Martin Schulz (PES), Graham Watson (ALDE) and Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Greens/European Free Alliance), as well as Stefan Füle, European Commissioner for Enlargement.
05/03/2010 | President
According to Micheline Calmy-Rey, Chair of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, speaking on International Women's Day, women make up more than half the population and the electorate of the organisation’s member states, but are still grossly under-represented in key political and public decision-making posts in many of those member countries. PACE President, Mevlüt Çavusoglu, added that the worldwide situation was serious, with less than 20 per cent of parliamentary seats held by women, and not even 5 per cent of heads of state being women.“A substantial increase of the representation of women in politics is indispensable to improve the quality of our democracies,” he said.
04/03/2010 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu has urged parliamentarians from both sides in the Middle East peace process to continue engaging in dialogue with the help of the Parliamentary Assembly. Addressing a meeting of the Sub-committee on the Middle East today in Izmir (Turkey), he called for a re-launch of PACE’s Tripartite Forum, which has brought together parliamentarians from Europe, from the Knesset and from the Palestinian Legislative Council. The President said he would “spare no efforts” to support those on both sides who wanted to solve the conflict.
03/03/2010 | President
Bosnia and Herzegovina urgently needs wide constitutional change, but – as an immediate first step, before the October elections – at least the provisions excluding some citizens from standing for the Presidency and the House of Peoples should be changed, PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu said today in Sarajevo. Speaking at a press conference at the end of a three-day official visit to the country (1-3 March), the President said: “It can be done in two months, before the deadline for changes to the electoral law. The substance is there – we have sound proposals from the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission, as well as domestic and international initiatives – but what is needed is the political will.”