16/05/2012 | Standing Committee
The priorities of Albania during its forthcoming Chairmanship of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers will be discussed at a meeting of PACE's Standing Committee in Tirana on Friday 25 May 2012. Albanian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Edmond Haxhinasto will hold an exchange of views with the committee, which brings together around 60 parliamentarians from the Council of Europe’s 47 member states.
09/03/2012 | Standing Committee
PACE Standing Committee, meeting today in Paris, made the following statement on the deteriorating situation of imprisoned politicians in Ukraine: “PACE notes with concern, some six weeks after Resolution 1862 (2012) on the functioning of democratic institutions in Ukraine, the absence of any tangible signs of its demands being met with regard to the criminal prosecutions initiated under Articles 364 and 365 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine against a number of former Government members..."
09/03/2012 | Standing Committee
PACE Standing Committee, meeting in Paris today, made the following statement on the situation in Syria: “The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is appalled by the deterioration of the situation in Syria, where more than 8,000 persons have been killed in the last 11 months as a direct result of actions by the Syrian autocratic leadership against a pro-democracy uprising..."
09/03/2012 | Standing Committee
PACE's Standing Committee today called on all the stakeholders of the EU Eastern Partnership to make the Council of Europe’s standard-setting, advisory and monitoring role – including the findings of the Council of Europe monitoring mechanisms and the PACE monitoring procedure – and its contribution to this process, more visible and duly acknowledge them.
09/03/2012 | Standing Committee
Considering the precarious situation of numerous national minority groups in Europe, the Assembly today said it is time to reconsider its previous proposals concerning the adoption of an additional protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, which could reinforce the standing of national minorities, both as individuals and/or as groups, before the European Court and provide them with substantive and justiciable rights.
09/03/2012 | Standing Committee
The Council of Europe member states which have not yet done so should be invited to sign and ratify the UN Convention and those member states which have ratified the Convention should contribute actively to the functioning of this instrument, PACE said today. The member states should also consider launching the process of elaborating a European convention on this issue, based on and enhancing the achievements of the UN Convention.
09/03/2012 | Standing Committee
The member states of the Council of Europe should sign and ratify the Nairobi Convention, which provides a harmonised legal framework for dealing with the problem of wrecks, PACE said today. European governments should create a European database on wrecks, carry out systematic assessments of wrecks, support research in this area, and consider setting up a fund for old wrecks that pose a threat to the environment.
09/03/2012 | Standing Committee
In order to be credible and trustworthy, expert assessments in fields such as the environment, health, energy, finance or civil protection must be independent and impartial, PACE said today. According to the parliamentarians, it is therefore essential, among other measures, to instigate model rules, to impose the traceability of expert assessments and for them to operate in a collegial framework.
09/03/2012 | Standing Committee
The performance of parliament is one of the essential indicators of the state of democracy in a country. In this context, measuring the democratic performance of parliaments in Council of Europe member states may therefore be useful, PACE said today. According to parliamentarians, self-evaluation by parliaments according to agreed benchmarks and a clearly established procedural framework could be a tool for identifying solutions to the shortcomings observed in representative democracy.
09/03/2012 | Standing Committee
While noting that the inhabitants of Rhodes and Kos with a Turkish cultural background are generally well integrated into the multicultural societies of the two islands, PACE today noted that supporting the Turkish language, heritage and culture and promoting their better knowledge would benefit not only the inhabitants with a Turkish cultural background, but also their neighbours with Greek or other cultural backgrounds. In that sense, PACE made proposals intended to assist the Greek authorities in resolving this and other issues in a constructive manner.
05/03/2012 | Standing Committee
A parliamentary debate on the need for independent and credible expert assessments will be among the highlights of the meeting of the Standing Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to be held in Paris on Friday 9 March 2012.
29/11/2011 | Standing Committee
Rights, duties and responsibilities cannot be dissociated from each other, PACE has declared. Approving a report by Marie-Louise Bemelmans-Videc (Netherlands, EPP/CD) in Edinburgh, the Assembly’s Standing Committee said that duties were legal obligations, whereas responsibilities were moral ones. It spelled out a series of fundamental responsibilities of individuals, including the responsibility to protect human life, to respect the personal liberty of others, to respect the private life and the reputation of others, to acquire an education, to work, to perform civic obligations, and to act responsibly towards children, the elderly, the disabled and the environment.