28/01/2005 | News
Following a debate on the last day of its plenary session in Strasbourg, PACE adopted new terms of reference for its ten committees. According to rapporteur Anne Brasseur (Luxembourg, LDR), the changes should help the Assembly keep pace with new political and institutional developments while taking account of recent changes in Assembly procedure and helping to ensure that committees do not duplicate each others’ work.
27/01/2005 | News
PACE yesterday demanded over forty “essential” changes in the text of the new draft Council of Europe Convention on action against trafficking in human beings – to give greater protection to victims and make the treaty more binding – and warned that it might withdraw its support unless the most important are adopted. In a unanimous opinion, the parliamentarians said the current text had lost much of its force and ended up as "not very convincing".
27/01/2005 | News
The Assembly elected Dragoljub Popovic as the first judge of the European Court of Human Rights in respect of Serbia and Montenegro. Mr Popovic was born in 1951 and studied law at the Belgrade University and the Faculty of Comparative Law in Brussels. Between 1980 and 1998 he taught at the Law School of Belgrade Univrsity. He practiced as an attorney at law in Belgrade from 1998-2001 and was ambassador of Serbia and Montenegro to Switzerland from 2001-2004. He currently teaches Constitutional Law and Introduction to Comparative Law at the Business Law School of Belgrade.
27/01/2005 | News
"Real democracy is not just counting votes... it is a spirit, a culture, and the task of the Council of Europe is to spread this culture throughout our continent," said Council of Europe Secretary General Terry Davis, addressing PACE this morning. Giving an overview of the organisation's activities, he also called for urgent ratifications of Protocol No. 14 to improve the working methods and procedures of the European Court of Human Rights, informed the parliamentarians about preparations for the Third Summit and assured them that their proposals following yesterday's debate would be fully taken into account.
27/01/2005 | News
PACE today offered to engage in a series of comprehensive dialogues with the US Congress on how best to promote human rights around the world, and called on it to consider applying for observer status with the Assembly. The parliamentarians said sixty years of positive transatlantic partnership had brought irreplaceable benefits in terms of security and prosperity and that the recent deterioration in relations was bad for the world. It is time for the Council of Europe and the US to “reaffirm their shared ideals”, said the Assembly.
27/01/2005 | News
While expressing its immense sadness at the tragic death of 280,000 people and its profound compassion for the families and friends of victims of the tsunami disaster, PACE today insisted that the protection of children left parentless by the disaster must be one of the humanitarian agencies’ priorities. Recalling UNICEF estimates, which put the number of children affected by the disaster at 1.5 million, the PACE said that the international community “must act to prevent these children from becoming targets for trafficking, physical violence, sexual exploitation or recruitment by sects”. In this connection, the Assembly supported UNICEF’s proposal that such children should be registered as rapidly as possible, and action taken to prevent trafficking.
27/01/2005 | News
A proposal to establish a "European remembrance centre for victims of forced population movements and ethnic cleansing" under Council of Europe auspices failed to gain the support of the Assembly this afternoon after an intense debate. Although a simple majority was in favour, the two-thirds majority required under the Rules to adopt recommendations was not achieved. Earlier, the head of the French parliamentary delegation Bernard Schreiner spoke against the creation of the centre as put forward in the report on the grounds that "it treated on the same level two very different tragedies: deportations to death camps and forced population movements". However, on Wednesday the Assembly called on European governments to decide at the Third Summit in May on the creation "in principle" of such a centre.
27/01/2005 | News
The Assembly today adopted opinions on two draft Council of Europe Conventions currently under preparation: the Draft Convention on money laundering, the financing of terrorism search, seizure and confiscation of the proceeds of crime and the Draft Convention on the prevention of terrorism. While welcoming the preparation of the texts, the Assembly proposed a series of recommendations to the Committee of Ministers intended to reinforce the content and application of the provisions.
26/01/2005 | News
President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, speaking to the plenary Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly this morning, unveiled a plan for autonomy in South Ossetia involving a local executive and parliament with control over economic policy, culture and education and what he called “a voice in the national structures of government”. He promised to protect language rights in the region and offered compensation for people who lost property in the 1990-1992 conflict, help for returnees and the full payment of pension arrears. Mr Saakashvili also asked for the help of the Council of Europe as a mediator, and described Russia as a constructive partner for peace. “Today we have committed on paper an offer that forms the basis for a lasting and just settlement,” said Mr Saakashvili, who last addressed PACE a year ago on coming to power. "The time has come to end divisions between peoples."
26/01/2005 | News
26/01/2005 | News
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) wants the Third Summit of Council of Europe Heads of State and Government, to be held in Warsaw on 16 and 17 May 2005, to define the Council of Europe's place in the European institutional landscape and to "provide the Organisation with a clear political mandate for the coming years". The members of the Assembly, who adopted a list of proposals for the Organisation's executive body, want the Heads of State of the 46 member states to draw up a precise definition of the Council of Europe's place in the European architecture and of "the procedures governing its co-operation with the European Union, the OSCE, NATO, the United Nations and its subsidiary bodies and sub-regional mechanisms".
26/01/2005 | News
This afternoon, PACE suggested that member states continue to apply the precautionary principle to GMOs, with compulsory labelling to give consumers the option of choosing non-GMO foodstuffs, GMO-free zones, minimum distances between crops, and safety fences. GMO production is increasing, and many of the risks – particularly medium and long-term effects – have not been sufficiently investigated. The parliamentarians believe that long-term monitoring is vital for assessing the ecological impact of GMOs.