21/01/2013 | Session
The credentials of a member of the Greek delegation to the PACE, Eleni Zaroulia, and a member of the Hungarian delegation, Tamás Gaudi Nagy, were challenged on procedural grounds at the opening of the PACE session today in Strasbourg. Making the challenges, Fiamma Nirenstein (Italy, EPP/CD) said that both members belonged to political parties which were “racist and anti-semitic”...
21/01/2013 | Session
Speaking today at the Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Gilbert Saboya, Foreign Affairs Minister of Andorra, announced that the Andorran Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers will soon launch a campaign to promote the European Convention of Human Rights.
21/01/2013 | Session
“Georgia has been threatened, embargoed, bombed, invaded and occupied. Two of our regions have been ethnically cleansed” declared President Saakashvili on Monday.
11/01/2013 | Session
Addresses by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Štefan Füle, and Italian Justice Minister Paola Severino (to be confirmed) are among highlights of the 2013 Winter PACE Session, taking place in Strasbourg from 21 to 25 January. Other highlights include debates on the honouring of obligations and commitments by Azerbaijan and the follow-up to the issue of political prisoners in this country, the situation in Kosovo,* the state of media freedom in Europe and the humanitarian situation in the conflict- and war-affected areas of Georgia and Russia.
20/12/2012 | Session
Addresses by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Štefan Füle, and Italian Minister for Justice Paola Severino (to be confirmed) will be among highlights of PACE’s Winter Session 2013 (Strasbourg, 21-25 January).
05/10/2012 | Session
Pietro Marcenaro (Italy, SOC), Chair of the PACE Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy, has today condemned the “shocking human rights violations, including extrajudicial executions in public, floggings, amputations and stoning to death” inflicted on persons accused of crimes, outside any legal framework, by the armed Islamic groups operating in northern Mali, a country divided between the government-controlled south and the north controlled by extremist groups linked with the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram.
05/10/2012 | Session
PACE has given its backing to a European tax on financial transactions, urging that it should cover as many countries as possible – as a first step to a global tax – and should also be levied on derivatives trading and off-exchange transactions. The Assembly, adopting a resolution based on a report by Hermine Naghdalyan (Armenia, ALDE), also said the EU should consider committing “a substantial share” of the revenue from this tax to repairing the damage caused by the financial and economic crisis, including by funding “sustainable growth, job creation, social needs and global solidarity”.
05/10/2012 | Session
In a resolution adopted today on the basis of a report by Rafael Huseynov (Azerbaijan, ALDE), PACE asked the member states to carry out a series of measures to "consolidate the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and make it more open and attractive”. According to the adopted text, states should continue to support the development of the EHEA, ensure that the Bologna Process is implemented and foster mobility and exchanges of students, teachers, researchers and university managers.
05/10/2012 | Session
In a statement adopted today, PACE’s Bureau has called on Council of Europe member States to give greater support to the North-South Centre, especially in its work to assist democratic processes in Arab countries in transition focusing on youth and young adults, including young women in Europe’s neighbouring regions.
05/10/2012 | Session
György Frunda (Romania, EPP/CD), rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the situation of human rights defenders, has expressed serious concern at recent threats to Tanya Lokshina, a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch in Russia. “I am worried about the worsening situation of human rights defenders in Russia and the hostile climate for their work. The recent threats sent via mobile phone to Ms Lokshina, a highly-regarded human rights defender, are unacceptable...
05/10/2012 | Session
Public authorities must ensure the quality of higher education without limiting academic freedom, PACE said today. Debating a report by Gvozden Srećko Flego (Croatia, SOC) on the governance of higher education institutions on the last day of the session, the Assembly said that these institutions should, within the framework of national higher education policies and domestic law and with due respect for human rights, be able to determine for themselves their academic curricula and degrees, student admissions, research, administrative organisation, financing and staff employment.
04/10/2012 | Session
“I strongly condemn the killing of Turkish civilians by Syrian cross-border shelling – this is only the latest and worst of several such incidents, which are an unacceptable violation of Turkish sovereignty...” declared today PACE President, Jean-Claude Mignon, on the occasion of a PACE urgent debate on the European response to the humanitarian crisis in Syria.