09/07/2020 | Election observation
A four-member delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), led by Stefan Schennach (Austria, SOC), will travel to Poland from 10 to 13 July to assess the second round of the Presidential election. The delegation is due to meet the members of the Special Election...
09/07/2020 | Monitoring
Following the recent convictions of the four Turkish human rights defenders - Taner Kılıç, İdil Eser, Günal Kuşun and Özlem Dalkıran - in the so-called Büyükada trial, the rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Alexandra Louis (France, ALDE), Thomas Hammarberg...
08/07/2020 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
“I am grateful to Italy for having allowed the 180 migrants on board the vessel Ocean Viking, to be transferred to the Italian ship Moby Zaza for quarantine, medical support and registration of asylum applications,” Pierre-Alain Fridez (Switzerland, SOC), Chairperson of the Committee on Migration...
08/07/2020 | President
The European Convention on Human Rights, as well as many other Council of Europe legal instruments that form our Convention system, set clear “red lines” that cannot be crossed even in times of severe public health emergency, PACE President Rik Daems said today. “We have to protect the lives of...
07/07/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Climate change caused by human activity is “already well present” in Europe, driving extreme heat waves, droughts, heavy precipitation, floods and rising sea-levels, and is set to get worse in the decades to come, PACE parliamentarians were warned this week. Speaking at a virtual public hearing...
06/07/2020 | Prizes
The 2020 Europe Prize – the highest level of the Prize which is awarded each year by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to the town most active in promoting the European ideal – has been awarded to Amilly in France. Amilly is a French town of 12 000 inhabitants located in...
03/07/2020 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
National programmes for the award of citizenship, residence permits and tax domiciles to foreign investors must respect the legal standards set by the Council of Europe, the Committee on Migration underlined today, and Member States should do their utmost to ensure that “investment migration does...
03/07/2020 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Following the Black Lives Matter protests in the US and Europe, parliamentarians came together with anti-racism officials and campaigners during a PACE webinar to condemn the “denial of the painful reality” of an estimated 15 million people of African descent living in Europe, and to demand...
03/07/2020 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
According to the Migration Committee, member States do not currently ensure effective guardianship systems for unaccompanied and separated migrant children, guaranteeing the protection and respect of their fundamental rights. “Guardianship systems are not harmonised across Europe. There is a...
02/07/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Whilst a ‘state of emergency’ may allow for a more effective response to a major health crisis like that of COVID-19, it might also be potentially hazardous from the perspective of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. But according to the Committee on Legal Affairs, “there should and need...
29/06/2020 | Prizes
The deadline for submission of nominations for the 2020 Václav Havel Prize is 30 June. The Prize aims to reward "outstanding civil society action in defending human rights in Europe and beyond". Candidates should have made a difference to the human rights situation of a given group, been...
29/06/2020 | Monitoring
The co-rapporteurs of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) for the monitoring of Georgia, Titus Corlatean (Romania, SOC) and Claude Kern (France, ALDE), have welcomed the adoption today by the Georgian Parliament of the Constitutional amendments to implement the new election...