30/09/2021 | President
Welcoming the adoption by the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) of some seven resolutions and five recommendations on the environment and climate change, its President Rik Daems announced the launch of the #EnvironmentRightNow hashtag initiative. “We need this initiative to go viral...
30/09/2021 | Session
The Parliamentary Assembly, during its “hybrid” autumn session, held a current affairs debate on 'The Western Balkans between democratic challenges and European aspirations: what role for the Council of Europe?'. George Papandreou (Greece, SOC) opened the debate and five other members took the...
30/09/2021 | Session
Tackling the immediate and future momentous challenges posed by the situation in Afghanistan requires a “coherent, co-ordinated and concerted” response by the international community and Council of Europe member States should “spare no effort” to achieve this objective, the Assembly said today...
30/09/2021 | Session
Addressing the Assembly today, the Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs of North Macedonia remained silent in the hemicycle for sixteen seconds. “This is to illustrate the 16 years my country has been a candidate country to the EU, since 2005, and we are still not able to start the journey...
30/09/2021 | Prizes
During a virtual presentation ceremony of the 2020 and 2021 European Diplomas, Kęstutis Masiulis (Lithuania, EPP/CD), Chairperson of the PACE Sub-Committee on the Europe Prize, praised the commitment of the 18 winning cities (12 cities in 2020 and 6 cities in 2021) in favour of a united Europe...
30/09/2021 | Session
While welcoming the success that the Convention on Cybercrime is enjoying world-wide, with 66 ratifications, the Assembly stressed that since the adoption of the Convention in 2001, the exploitation of information technology for criminal purposes had strongly increased. Adopting an opinion today...
30/09/2021 | President
Rik Daems, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), will make a working visit to Poland from 5 to 7 October 2021, during which he will hold a series of high-level meetings, in particular with the Speaker of the Sejm (lower house of the Polish Parliament), the...
30/09/2021 | Session
PACE has called on the authorities of Belarus to “stop the instrumentalisation of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers”, in particular those in a vulnerable situation, and to “stop facilitating travel to Belarus of third country nationals under false pretences of tourism”. In a resolution based...
29/09/2021 | Session
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) today called for an ambitious new legal framework, both at national and European level, to anchor “the right to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment” and presented a draft of an additional protocol to the European Convention...
29/09/2021 | Session
A high-level panel representing all sectors of society held an interactive debate today on the theme of the environment and human rights – with agreement among all the participants that “the time to act is now”. The event was opened PACE President Rik Daems and Council of Europe Secretary General...
29/09/2021 | Session
Adopting a resolution today in Strasbourg, based on a report by Edite Estrela (Portugal, SOC), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) said that access to the fundamental right to a safe, clean and healthy environment was unequally shared between regions, countries and...
28/09/2021 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Following credible reports that CIA officials discussed assassinating Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Pieter Omtzigt (Netherlands, EPP/CD), the Parliamentary Assembly’s General Rapporteur on the protection of whistleblowers, has expressed serious concern at the possibility of the extra-judicial...