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.”
02/03/2010 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu has urged Bosnia and Herzegovina to make swift constitutional changes ending discrimination in elections to the Presidency and House of Peoples, in line with the recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Sejdic and Finci v. BiH.
02/03/2010 | President
Delegations from the Israeli Knesset and the Palestinian Legislative Council are to continue discussing ways of fostering contact and building confidence at a meeting of PACE Sub-committee on the Middle East taking place on 4-5 March 2010 in Izmir, Turkey. PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu will address the meeting, along with the Governor of Izmir Cahit Kiraç and other leading Turkish officials. There will also be an exchange of views with experts working on Turkish initiatives to build confidence in the region.
01/03/2010 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu today welcomed the return of the opposition to the Albanian parliament last week as an important political sign. “However, I firmly hope that this positive step was not a “one off” and that it will mark the beginning of ongoing participation of all political forces in the work of the parliament. I am all the more pleased about this development as it comes after the recent visit of our PACE Presidential Committee to the country, which aimed at supporting the process of resolving the current political situation and assisting President Topi in his role of mediator and his efforts to restore political dialogue,” the President said.
26/02/2010 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu yesterday took part in the official ceremony to inaugurate the new President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovich. He personally transmitted an invitation to President Yanukovich to address the Assembly, which he accepted. On this occasion, Mr Çavusoglu also met the President of Armenia, the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan, the Speaker of the Georgian Parliament, the Speaker of the Russian State Duma, the President of the European Parliament, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs, the EU's Enlargement Commissioner, and the Foreign Minister of Turkey.
26/02/2010 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu is to make an official visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1-3 March 2010. He will meet the Presidency, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, and the Speakers of both chambers of the Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as delivering an address to both chambers of the parliament on Tuesday morning. He will also hold a series of discussions with the leaders of the main political parties in the country.
23/02/2010 | President
At the invitation of the Ukrainian authorities, PACE President Mevlüt Cavusoglu will participate in the inauguration ceremony of President-elect Viktor Yanukovich in Kyiv on 25 February. On this occasion, the President will re-iterate the invitation for Mr Yanukovich to address the Parliamentary Assembly in the near future, possibly already during its April session in Strasbourg (26-30 April). On 24 February, he will meet the Speaker of the Parliament of Ukraine and the country’s delegation to PACE.
23/02/2010 | President
At the end of their visit to Albania, the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Mevlüt Çavusoglu, the leaders of the Assembly’s five political groups and the monitoring co-rapporteurs for Albania today urge the Albanian parties to end the current political crisis in the country in order to proceed with the vitally needed reforms. They believe that the absence of parliamentary dialogue undermines the democratic functioning of the state’s institutions.
19/02/2010 | President
Speaking at the press conference marking the end of a two-day conference on the future of the European Court of Human Rights in Interlaken, organised by the Swiss chairmanship of the Council of Europe, PACE President Mevlüt Cavusoglu re-affirmed the Parliamentary Assembly’s full support for the Final Declaration. He also expressed hope for a rapid EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights, creating one human rights standard for one Europe.
18/02/2010 | President
“The Strasbourg supervisory mechanism is subsidiary in nature. Primary responsibility for the protection of human rights should be shifted back to national legal systems and practices,” PACE President Mevlüt Cavusoglu stressed at the opening of the Interlaken Conference on the future of the European Court of Human Rights. He also stressed that a well-functioning national human rights protection machinery could make a separate filtering body within the Court superfluous.