27/01/2009 | Session
Technological change in the audiovisual media has made it necessary to revise the European Convention on Transfrontier Television (ECTT), whose aim is to ensure freedom of transmission and retransmission of broadcasting in Europe regardless of frontiers. During a debate on the regulation of audiovisual media services, based on a report by Andrew McIntosh (United Kingdom, SOC), PACE reiterated that “all media regulation in Europe must respect the right to freedom of expression and information … regardless of frontiers”.
27/01/2009 | Session
British Conservative MP David Wilshire has today been elected as the new Chairman of the European Democrat Group (EDG) in the Assembly. Mr Wilshire was formerly Deputy Chairman of the Group and replaces Mikhail Margelov who has left the Russian delegation to take up a new role in Moscow. "It is a great honour and responsibility to be entrusted with the important task of upholding and implementing the values and beliefs of our Group. As the third largest political group in PACE we are well placed to help steer the Council of Europe in the direction our group members were all elected to champion", Mr Wilshire said.
27/01/2009 | Session
PACE Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, meeting this morning in Strasbourg, adopted the following statement: “Following the recent spate of murders and disappearances of a lawyer, a journalist, a witness and other critics of, in particular, the regime of the President of the Chechen Republic, the committee urges the competent authorities in Moscow and Vienna to carry out full inquiries and to prosecute the killers as well as the instigators and organisers of these crimes.
26/01/2009 | Session
In a resolution adopted today, PACE asked member states to include disability issues in all areas of policy-making and allocate sufficient funds to them.In line with the conclusions of the rapporteur for the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, Bernard Marquet (Monaco, ALDE), the Assembly asked member states to promote and carry out the Council of Europe Disability Action Plan for 2006-2015, facing people with disabilities.
26/01/2009 | Session
Addressing the Assembly on 26 January on the state of the Council of Europe, Secretary General Terry Davis stated that reducing the organisation’s output will be even more expensive for Europe in the longer term. ''There is a cost attached to that – a cost which can be measured not only in less democracy, less human rights and less rule of law, but also in financial terms. In money which will have to be spent on putting out fires which can be prevented if we have not only the will but also the means to act in time,'' he said.
26/01/2009 | Session
Candidatures for the "PACE Gender Equality Prize" may now be submitted until 1 June 2009, following extension of the deadline by the Committee. The Prize is awarded in recognition of completed or current action, schemes or initiatives by political parties that have significantly improved women’s participation in elected assemblies or political parties, or in their respective executive bodies.
26/01/2009 | Session
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) today re-elected Lluís Maria de Puig as its President. PACE also elected its Vice-Presidents:
26/01/2009 | Session
Adopting its agenda the opening of the Winter Session, the Assembly today decided to hold a current affairs debate on the situation in Gaza, on Wednesday 28. The same day, the implementation of Resolution 1633 on the consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia, adopted in October 2008, and the humanitarian consequences of the conflict will be discussed. The following day, the Assembly will hold an urgent debate on the consequences of the global financial crisis, as well as on the challenge on procedural grounds of still unratified credentials of the parliamentary delegation of Albania. In the context of the Spanish chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos will address the parliamentarians on Wednesday 28 January.
26/01/2009 | Session
“The fact that, in his very first days in office, Mr Obama called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay and demanded that the United States comply with the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war gives us great hope that Europe and the United States will now be able to join forces in their traditional role of championing the very highest standards of international law,” Assembly President Lluís Maria de Puig today said at the opening of the Winter Session.
26/01/2009 | Session
Statement by Spain’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, Chairman-in-office of the Committee of Ministers, Lluís Maria De Puig, President of the Parliamentary Assembly, and Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe: “The Holocaust is one of the darkest periods in the history of Europe. It will stay engraved forever in the memory of humankind. The International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an occasion to pay tribute to the victims and to reinforce our campaign against the racist hatred which motivated the Holocaust."
15/01/2009 | Session
The implementation of Resolution 1633 on the consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia, adopted in October 2008, and the humanitarian consequences of the conflict will be one of the highlights of PACE winter session, which will take place in Strasbourg from 26 to 30 January 2009. The parliamentarians will discuss the reports by Luc Van den Brande (Belgium, EPP/CD) and Mátyás Eörsi (Hungary, ALDE), co-rapporteurs of the Assembly’s Monitoring Committee, and Corien W.A. Jonker (Netherlands, EPP/CD), rapporteur of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population, following their visits to these countries.
05/12/2008 | Session
Debates on the humanitarian consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia, and the implementation of PACE Resolution 1633 on the consequences of the war, are among the highlights of PACE’s Winter Session (26-30 January 2009). A current affairs debate on "The protection of citizens’ rights during the present financial crisis" is also scheduled.