12/10/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
On 18 October the members of the Committee on the Environment will take part in the seminar on “Environmental and Scientific Issues of the North Atlantic: A European Perspective”, whose main themes will be fishing and climate change, marine pollution and marine governance. The day after the seminar there will be a plenary meeting of the Committee on the Environment, whose agenda will include: the state of the environment in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea Basin, transfrontier co-operation, regional self-government in the Azores and the use of geothermal power.
18/09/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee is organising two exchanges of views on the disappearance of newborn babies and child and teenage suicide on 20 September in Paris. With an eye to a new report by Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold (Switzerland, SOC) on the disappearance of newborn babies for illegal adoption in Europe, the participants will be hearing from David Olivier Kaminski, a lawyer who appeared in the case of alleged trafficking in Bulgarian babies in France, and Alina Radu, a Moldovan journalist who will report on her experience of the problem in her country.
30/08/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
After talks with politicians, with the Ombudswoman for Children and with representatives of various NGOs during his visit to Ukraine from 27 to 30 August, Michael Hancock (United Kingdom, ALDE), Rapporteur for the PACE Social Affairs Committee, notes that, while the problem of children abandoned at birth persists, the authorities are committed to combating the phenomenon by introducing major reforms focusing on children's rights, with appropriate financial resources, the aim being to "de-institutionalise" this practice.
20/02/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE's Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee adopted a draft report on the quality of medicines in Europe at its meeting in Paris on 22 February 2007. The report, by Bernard Marquet (Monaco, ALDE), highlights the alarming increase in counterfeit medicines, which now account for 10% of the world market, and cost states 500 billion euros in lost taxes every year. It calls for an international convention, defining a new offence – pharmaceutical crime – and making it possible to arrest, prosecute and punish the producers of counterfeit or adulterated medicines.
06/02/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
At the end of a two-day visit to Moldova (5-6 February), Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold, who is preparing a report for PACE on the disappearance of new-born babies for illegal adoption, made the following statement:"I have had a positive visit, involving fruitful exchanges of view with interlocutors from all parts of society including the authorities, for which I am grateful. All share my aim of protecting new-born children from illegal adoption, a complex and hidden crime. However, before coming to any final conclusions concerning the situation here, I need to gather additional information, including from other countries. I intend to leave any further comment until my final report is made public later this year."
01/02/2007 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold (Switzerland, SOC), who is preparing a report for PACE on the disappearance of new-born babies for illegal adoption, will visit Moldova from 4 to 6 February 2007. She will seek to investigate allegations of newspaper advertisements targeting unmarried mothers who might be willing to sell their children for illegal adoption, and to look into the possible illegal trafficking of babies.
15/12/2006 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
At a meeting yesterday in Paris, PACE's Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs urged the governments of the organisation’s 46 member states to take action against modern-day enslavement and trafficking of seasonal agricultural workers. “Situations vary between countries, but all point to the same findings: the active population looking for work is, in part, constituted illegally and lastingly so as to create a real labour market and a casual, exploited workforce to match, often under outright conditions of modern-day bondage,” said John Dupraz (Switzerland, ALDE), PACE rapporteur on Agriculture and illegal employment in Europe.
13/12/2006 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The annual meeting of the PACE Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee with the Unicef Innocenti Research Centre was held in Florence on 11 December. It was chaired by Marcel Glesener (Luxembourg, EPP/CD) and commemorated Unicef’s 60th anniversary. Marta Santos Pais, Director of the Innocenti Centre, presented a detailed report on the State of the World’s Children 2007, stressing the links and interaction between children’s rights and women’s rights. If women and mothers had more rights and power in the world, children would be better and more effectively protected, she said.
08/12/2006 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee of the PACE will be holding a joint meeting with UNICEF at the Innocenti Research Centre in Florence on 11 December on the subject of children’s rights. The meeting will also provide the opportunity to celebrate UNICEF’s 60th anniversary. The Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, and the Director of the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Marta Santos Pais, will address the participants at the opening of the meeting.
30/11/2006 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE’s Economic Affairs Committee yesterday called for the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers to take a vote on the Organisation’s 2007 budget if no compromise can be reached between divergent positions. "In order to allow the Council of Europe to continue to function normally in 2007… the Committee of Ministers must now face up to its responsibilities," the committee said in a statement, failing which it would demand an urgent debate at the Assembly’s January plenary session. The committee urged government representatives to "do more to facilitate, rather than hamper by its foot-dragging attitude year after year, the work of the Council of Europe".
06/11/2006 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Organised by PACE’s Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee on 9 November, this hearing will look at how the revised European Social Charter is being implemented, particularly as regards new labour standards and minimum wages. Participants include representatives of the International Labour Organisation and of the European Trade Unions Confederation as well as Council of Europe bodies charged with monitoring commitments on social rights. Meeting the following day, the committee is also due to approve opinions on reports concerning the presence of Turkish migrant workers in Europe and the date-rape drugs.
25/09/2006 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
More than 200 parliamentarians and farmers’ representatives from across Greater Europe and the Mediterranean will gather in Strasbourg on 28 and 29 September 2006 to discuss “building a Euro-Mediterranean agricultural and rural policy in a global context” at the 2nd Euro-Mediterranean Conference on Agriculture. The conference is organised jointly by PACE and the European Parliament, who will each host the conference in their debating chambers on consecutive days, together with the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) and the International Centre for Advanced Mediterranean Agronomic Studies (ICAMAS).