31/01/2008 | News
“Trafficking in human beings constitutes a form of inhuman and degrading treatment as well as a blatant violation of human rights. However, together with the arms trade and drug trafficking, it is one of the few sectors which has never seen an economic slowdown. With the coming into force of our convention, we hope at last to wage a more effective fight against this intolerable modern-day barbarity, which can only be countered if a collective effort is made on a Europe-wide basis. The greater the number of countries that ratify this convention, the better the protection that will be afforded to the victims”, said Lluis Maria de Puig, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
23/01/2008 | News
Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC) was today elected Chairman of the Socialist Group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). A member of the Assembly since 1995, he is one of its Vice-Presidents and serves on three committtees: Culture, Science and Education, Political Affairs, and Honouring of Obligations and Commitments by Member States (Monitoring Committee). In his new post, he succeeds Lluis Maria de Puig (Spain), who was elected President of the Assembly on 21 January.
18/01/2008 | News
The Parliamentary Assembly's Table Office has just received the candidacy of Lluís Maria de Puig (Spain, SOC) for the post of PACE President. At the opening of the Winter Session, on Monday 21 January at 11.30 a.m., the Assembly will elect its new President, to succeed René van der Linden, for a one-year term of office, renewable once.
04/12/2007 | News
Developments as regards the future status of Kosovo, UN Security Council and EU blacklists, the disappearance of new-born babies for illegal adoption and the election of the new President of the Assembly are among highlights of PACE’s Winter Session (21-25 January 2008). Mikhail Gorbachev, President of Green Cross International, will take part in the debate on global warming and ecological disasters, and Michel Platini, President of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), will participate in the debate on the need to preserve the European sport model.
07/09/2007 | News
National parliamentarians and their equivalents from regional parliaments across Europe will gather in Strasbourg on 12 September for a major international conference on “Representative democracy, European affairs and active citizenship”.
10/08/2007 | News
Three members of PACE making an unofficial and personal visit to Cuba have expressed their solidarity with the Cuban opposition and said they would ask the Council of Europe to make available its political and legal assistance in achieving peaceful transition in Cuba. Mátyás Eörsi (Hungary, ALDE), Erik Jurgens (Netherlands, SOC) and Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD), who were representing only themselves and their political families, said they had faced "intimidation" during the seven-day visit.
25/06/2007 | News
The PACE culture and education committee rapporteur Guy Lengagne (France, SOC) today said he was ‘flabbergasted’, ‘appalled’ and ‘shocked’ by the PACE decision to refer back to committee his report on the dangers of creationism in education. ‘I can only see this as a ploy on the part of people who will use any means they can to combat the theory of evolution and impose creationist ideas. What we have here is the makings of a return to the Middle Ages, and too many members of this human-rights-based assembly fail to see it’.
24/05/2007 | News
The PACE Standing Committee, meeting in Belgrade today, deplored that, twelve years since the end of hostilities, the issue of the missing persons in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia remained unsolved. According to a report by Leo Platvoet (Netherlands, UEL), the number of missing persons as a result of the conflicts over the regions of Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia can be calculated at 7 538 persons.
24/05/2007 | News
While reiterating its support for the Kyoto Protocol, whose aim is to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, the Standing Committee asked the 47 Council of Europe member states to take comprehensive measures to support natural mechanisms (forests, soils and oceans) for absorbing and storing carbon dioxide.
24/05/2007 | News
At its meeting in Belgrade today, the PACE Standing Committee recalled that the Council of Europe’s revised European Social Charter, which came into force in 1999, should be regarded as the basic core of social rights which all Council of Europe member states should guarantee for their citizens, especially the most vulnerable ones. Parliamentarians stressed that it was also a means of co-ordinating social policies.
24/05/2007 | News
The inability of women in many jurisdictions to pass on their surname – and thus part of their identity – to their children can be seen as a form of discrimination against women, but this is only one of many examples of discrimination, especially frequent in terms of women’s personal status and in family law, according to PACE rapporteur Svetlana Smirnova (Russia, EDG).
24/05/2007 | News
Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic stressed at the meeting of the Standing Committee in Belgrade on 24 May: "A crucial component in building a Europe without division is reconciliation. Democracy cannot flourish without a full and open account of the past. That is why the Republic of Serbia is strongly committed to full and immediate cooperation with the ICTY. All indictees must be located, arrested, and extradited. This is not only our international obligation; it is our moral duty — to our neighbours and the world, of course, but foremost to ourselves."