13/10/2020 | Standing Committee
“The COVID-19 pandemic has been an accelerator of the problems we were already facing but were refusing to address. We now have no excuses. We can no longer procrastinate in realising human rights for all”, today said Dunja Mijatović, Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, presenting...
13/10/2020 | Standing Committee
PACE has urged governments to avoid “one size fits all” responses to pandemics or other similar crises, and ensure they always act inclusively and take account of the diversity of society when shaping emergency measures in future. Approving a resolution based on a report by Petra Stienen...
13/10/2020 | Standing Committee
By adopting a resolution today, based on the report by Pierre-Alain Fridez (Switzerland, SOC) on the humanitarian consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic for migrants and refugees, the Standing Committee, meeting by videoconference, said that these vulnerable groups were “doubly affected” by the...
12/10/2020 | Standing Committee
“In times of pandemic, human life and public health should be kept at the top of our priorities regardless of the problems in the economic activity and by trying also to minimize the negative consequences for democracy, the rule of law and human rights,” said Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, the Greek...
12/10/2020 | Standing Committee
OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria has appealed to the world’s nations not to stop the extra economic stimulus provided during the period of the COVID pandemic too soon. In an exchange of views by teleconference with members of the Parliamentary Assembly’s ‘enlarged’ Standing Committee, the OECD...
12/10/2020 | Standing Committee
The ‘enlarged’ Standing Committee, meeting today by videoconference, held a current affairs debate on the ‘Armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, failure of peaceful conflict resolution and a risk to regional stability’. Michael Aastrup Jensen (Denmark, ALDE) opened the debate and twenty...
12/10/2020 | Standing Committee
PACE is urging the European Union to rapidly resolve the “institutional deadlock” imposed by Malta over the definition of ‘illegal sports betting’ which is preventing the Union and its member States from ratifying a Council of Europe convention aimed at tackling the manipulation of sport...
12/10/2020 | Standing Committee
Member States must “optimise human rights protection in the implementation of drug control policies”, while adopting “a public health approach”, the PACE Standing Committee said today, meeting by videoconference. There is strong evidence suggesting that purely repressive policies have been...
15/09/2020 | Standing Committee
PACE is asking election experts to assess the fairness of different electoral systems in the light of certain anomalies which mean that parliaments do not necessarily reflect the political choices made by constituents at the ballot-box. “Not all electoral systems provide an equal degree of...
15/09/2020 | Standing Committee
The Standing Committee (*) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) meeting today by videoconference, adopted the following statement on an urgent need for a democratic, broad-based and inclusive political process in Belarus: "1. The Parliamentary Assembly’s political...
15/09/2020 | Standing Committee
“Since our last digital meeting in June, we have still been facing many of the questions and the concerns raised by the pandemic regarding respect for democracy, the rule of law and human rights in this extraordinary situation,” said Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, the Greek Alternate Minister of Foreign...
15/09/2020 | Standing Committee
In a resolution adopted today on the basis of a report by Stefan Schennach (Austria, SOC), the Assembly called on member States to “develop a new culture of public dialogue” on advances in science and technology, so that progress in these fields respect fundamental values and human dignity...