15/04/2021 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The 2021 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 Khmelnytskyi in Ukraine. Khmelnytskyi is a city of 290 000 inhabitants...
16/03/2021 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
More than a year after the adoption of Resolution 2321 (2020) and Recommendation 2169 (2020) on “International obligations concerning the repatriation of children from war and conflict zones”, the Social Affairs Committee is deeply concerned about the plight of children in Syria whose parents...
16/03/2021 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The Council of Europe must help develop “climate resilience” to deal with global warming by promoting the rule of law – meaning the supremacy of law, equality before the law, accountability to the law, separation of powers, participation in decision making, and transparency, according to the...
16/03/2021 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
High-level officials from the United Nations, European Union, World Health Organisation and Council of Europe came together for a parliamentary hearing on the deinstitutionalisation of people with disabilities, focusing also on the emerging consensus on how to end coercion in mental health, and...
15/03/2021 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
A PACE public hearing on the deinstitutionalisation of persons with disabilities is to be streamed live at 2 p.m. CET on Tuesday 16 March. Organised by the Assembly’s Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development, the hearing will bring together a series of high-level officials...
04/02/2021 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The PACE Sub-Committee on Public Health and Sustainable Development held a public hearing on Tuesday 9 February by videoconference on “Overcoming vaccine hesitancy: strategies for parliaments and parliamentarians”, as part of a report being prepared by Vladimir Kruglyi (Russian Federation, NR...
19/01/2021 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“Elected officials are fully responsible for building climate resilience: we are in the same fight as young people. It is up to us to take the right decisions today,” said Jennifer De Temmerman (France, ALDE), at a round table on “Representative democracy against climate crisis”, organised by...
21/12/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
A PACE committee has approved a wide-ranging report making a series of ethical, legal and practical recommendations for the safe and fair worldwide deployment of vaccines against Covid-19, and to encourage their uptake in the face of “vaccine hesitancy”. “Scientists have done a remarkable job in...
01/12/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
As the world prepares to be vaccinated against COVID-19, PACE parliamentarians have heard from regulators, vaccine experts and ethicists about how to ensure a vaccine developed against the clock is safe, who should be first in line to receive it, how to ensure its fair distribution globally, and...
01/12/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“Often difficult to diagnose and disabling, chronic and long-term illnesses affect the lives of patients – who may be deprived of their autonomy, their rights to participation and full integration into society – and are a source of discrimination,” said the Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable...
01/12/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Children joined experts at a PACE parliamentary hearing to demand urgent action on climate change from European governments – and to argue that continued inaction would be a violation of their right to a healthy environment. The virtual joint hearing, organised by PACE’s Committee on Social...
17/11/2020 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Joint statement by Baroness Doreen E. Massey (United Kingdom, SOC), PACE Rapporteur on “Addressing sexual violence against children: stepping up action and co-operation in Europe”, and Dimitri Houbron (France, ALDE), PACE Rapporteur on “For an assessment of the means and provisions to combat...