18/11/2021 | President
PACE President Rik Daems ended his three-day official visit to Kazakhstan. Congratulating the country on the 30th anniversary of its independence, he particularly focused on strengthening co-operation between the Parliamentary Assembly and Kazakhstan with a view to implementing reforms in the...
18/11/2021 | President
Statement by Rik Daems, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), on the occasion of the European Day on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse (18 November 2021) Strasbourg, 18.11.2021 – “Today, on End Child Sex Abuse Day, I call on...
15/11/2021 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Alexandra Louis (France, ALDE), the Parliamentary Assembly's General Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, has expressed her concern following the launch by the Russian Prosecutor’s office of proceedings aimed at closing down the human rights NGO “Memorial”. “’Memorial’ is the...
15/11/2021 | Election observation
The presidential and early parliamentary elections held in Bulgaria on 14 November were competitive and fundamental freedoms were respected. However, public interest and trust in the electoral process is undermined by the long-standing issue of vote-buying and also by the failure of the political...
12/11/2021 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The “Panama papers”, “Paradise papers”, “Laundromats”, and “Pandora papers” scandals have involved allegations that politicians used offshore schemes to evade taxes and conceal assets, raising suspicions of corruption and money laundering. Adopting a draft resolution based on the report prepared...
09/11/2021 | President
On 7 November 2021 PACE President Rik Daems took part in a special parliamentary meeting organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) on the occasion of the UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow. He addressed the Advocacy session, which focused on parliamentary action to increase...
09/11/2021 | Monitoring
“Armenia has emerged successfully from the serious political crisis caused by its defeat in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which is in itself a real success,” said Kimmo Kiljunen (Finland, SOC) and Boriana Åberg (Sweden, EPP/CD), co-rapporteurs of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly...
08/11/2021 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
Long periods of isolation during the Covid-19 pandemic have shown to what degree education and exposure to culture are vital for individual and collective well-being, PACE Committee on culture underlined. And adherence to democratic values and active citizenship, particularly among young people...
05/11/2021 | Election observation
A 19-member delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), led by Alfred Heer (Switzerland, ALDE), will travel to Bulgaria from 12 to 15 November 2021 to observe the conduct of the presidential and early parliamentary elections. The delegation will meet with leaders and...
03/11/2021 | Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs
The PACE Rules Committee considered on 2 November the complaint against former Assembly member Rosianne Cutajar (Malta, SOC) regarding alleged violations of the Code of Conduct for members of the Parliamentary Assembly. The committee examined the allegations and decided, despite Ms Cutajar's...
03/11/2021 | Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs
PACE’s Rules Committee has proposed to revise the Assembly’s Code of Conduct for members to explicitly prohibit “sexism, harassment and sexual violence and misconduct”, and has outlined a procedure for investigating any cases of this behaviour. Approving a report by Thorhildur Sunna Ævarsdóttir...
02/11/2021 | Parliamentary support
In the framework of the project “Support to the development of the role of the Parliament in consolidating democracy in Morocco" funded by the EU and implemented by the Council of Europe, the Parliament of the Kingdom of Morocco and the PACE organised a training session on "Evaluation of public...