28/03/2013 | President
PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon will make an official visit to Finland on 2-3 April 2013. During his visit, he will meet the Speaker of Parliament, the Minister for Culture and Sport, the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and the Chairs of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee and the Constitutional Law Committee.
28/03/2013 | President
PACE President, Jean-Claude Mignon, will make an official visit to Norway on 4-5 April 2013. During his visit, he will have an audience with Harald V, King of Norway, and hold a series of parliamentary exchanges...
28/03/2013 | Election observation
A six-member delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), led by Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC), will carry out a pre-electoral mission to Bulgaria on 4-5 April 2013, to assess the electoral framework and campaign prior to the early parliamentary elections to be held in the country on 12 May.
27/03/2013 | President
“I welcome the clear willingness expressed by Ukraine’s highest authorities to scrupulously respect their obligations and commitments to the Council of Europe, as well as the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights,” said PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon, speaking today in Kyiv.
26/03/2013 | Monitoring
PACE monitoring co-rapporteurs for Georgia, Michael Aastrup Jensen (Denmark, ALDE) and Boriss Cilevičs (Latvia, SOC), have welcomed yesterday’s adoption, with broad bipartisan support, of the constitutional amendment that removed the possibility for the President to appoint a new government without the parliament’s approval.
26/03/2013 | Session
German President Joachim Gauck, Andorran Head of Government Antoni Martí, Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, Romanian Prime Minister Victor Ponta and Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki are among a number of leading figures to address PACE during its spring plenary session in Strasbourg (22-26 April).
26/03/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Council of Europe’s Transfrontier Television Convention, a 1989 treaty in force in 34 countries which sets out basic common standards for European TV programmes to enable their free circulation across borders, needs to be modernised, according to PACE rapporteur James Clappison (United Kingdom, EDG).
25/03/2013 | Prizes
The Václav Havel Human Rights Prize, which aims to reward outstanding civil society action in the defence of human rights in Europe and beyond, was launched today at a ceremony in Prague (Czech Republic).
22/03/2013 | Monitoring
“As rapporteur of the PACE on post-monitoring dialogue with Turkey, I first wish to support the statement issued by our President Jean-Claude Mignon welcoming the PKK leader’s call for a truce. This is a crucial stage in the continuing peace process, begun in December 2012 by the Turkish authorities with Abdullah Öcalan. The end of all the violence is a precondition for any negotiations,” Josette Durrieu (France, SOC) said today.
22/03/2013 | President
PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon is to make an official visit to Ukraine from 26 to 28 March 2013. In Kyiv on Tuesday, he is due to meet President Viktor Yanukovich, Prime Minister Mykola Azarov and Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara.
21/03/2013 | President
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly President Jean-Claude Mignon has today welcomed the PKK leader’s call for a truce. "This is a crucial stage in the continuing peace process, begun in December 2012 by the Turkish authorities with Abdullah Öcalan. Ending all violence is a precondition for any negotiations,” he said.
20/03/2013 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
21 Council of Europe member states have problems of overcrowding in prisons, with more than 100 prisoners per 100 prison places. According to the Council of Europe’s statistics the countries where the situation is worst are Serbia, at 172 prisoners per 100 places, Italy at 153, Cyprus at 151, Greece at 123, Turkey at 115 and France at 108...