09/06/2020 | Monitoring
The co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Albania by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Joseph O’Reilly (Ireland, EPP/CD) and Petter Eide (Norway, UEL), today welcomed the agreement reached between the ruling majority and the parliamentary and non-parliamentary opposition...
05/06/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee has expressed its concern at the “increasing legal and political difficulties” surrounding the implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights - and again urged States Parties to the Convention to implement the Court’s binding judgments. Approving...
05/06/2020 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Sexual and reproductive healthcare have been among the first services to be negatively impacted during the COVID-19 crisis. Women have often been left without access to essential medical services such as contraception, testing for HIV and sexually transmitted infections, and reproductive cancer...
04/06/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
PACE’s rapporteur on Artificial Intelligence in healthcare, Selin Sayek Böke (Turkey, SOC), has again urged a “strong regulatory and ethical framework” for AI in health to ensure public trust, underlining the need for robust data governance, clear consent procedures, and a healthy balance between...
04/06/2020 | President
PACE President Rik Daems has underlined the need to keep democratic safeguards in place during and after a pandemic, particularly parliamentary scrutiny of the executive, and again warned governments against trying to keep some restrictions in place once the COVID-19 crisis was over. Speaking...
04/06/2020 | President
The Secretary General of the 47-nation Council of Europe, Marija Pejčinović Burić, the Chair of the Committee of Ministers and Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Hellenic Republic, Miltiadis Varvitsiotis, and the President of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly, Rik Daems...
02/06/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“The lessons from the suffering of the past few months must be that we need to act fast to contain outbreaks, using tried and tested, effective measures, implemented in a rights-compliant way, to avoid a disastrous outcome in terms of lives lost and burden of sickness, as well as knock-on effects...
29/05/2020 | Political Affairs and Democracy
How can parliaments adjust their role as guarantors of stability and democratic legitimacy during the current pandemic crisis? How can continuity of parliamentary oversight be ensured? Where do the boundaries of delegation of powers from national parliaments to the executive lie in emergency...
29/05/2020 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Pieter Omtzigt (Netherlands, EPP/CD), Rapporteur for follow-up to Parliamentary Assembly Resolution 2293 (2019) on the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia and the rule of law in Malta, today called on the Maltese authorities to ensure effective investigations into the numerous long-standing...
27/05/2020 | Political Affairs and Democracy
In a crisis situation such as the COVID-19 pandemic – where an executive, facing a number of constraints, has to take immediate action – how can parliaments adjust their role as guarantors of stability and democratic legitimacy? How can continuity of parliamentary oversight be ensured and where...
25/05/2020 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
“Today on the occasion of International Missing Children’s Day, I would like to call special attention to the problem of missing refugee and migrant children in Europe,” said Serap Yaşar (Turkey, NR), PACE’s rapporteur on “Missing refugee and migrant children in Europe. “The pandemic situation...
22/05/2020 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
Stefan Schennach (Austria, SOC), General Rapporteur on media freedom and the safety of journalists for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), has today expressed concern over the detention of journalists, an appalling phenomenon which has been observed for many years...