11/10/2012 | Monitoring
PACE rapporteur for the monitoring of Armenia, Axel Fischer (Germany EPP/CD), today expressed his concern about the lifting of the parliamentary immunity of former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, on controversial criminal charges, by the National Assembly. “This is especially worrying in the light of persistent allegations that political motives have played a role in the charges that are levied against him,” emphasised Mr Fischer.
11/10/2012 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
PACE’s Committee on Culture, Science, Education and Media, in a wide-ranging assessment of the state of media freedom in Europe, has demanded that Council of Europe member States properly investigate and hold liable the instigators of attacks on investigative journalists and those working with them.
10/10/2012 | Election observation
A 10-member delegation of the PACE, led by Christopher Chope (United Kingdom, EDG), will travel to Montenegro from 12 to 15 October to observe the early parliamentary elections, alongside observers from the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights(ODIHR).
10/10/2012 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“The tide is continuing to turn against the death penalty worldwide. The Council of Europe, by making abolition of the death penalty a condition of membership, has led the way at regional level, but there is still plenty of work for us to do,” said Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), PACE rapporteur on abolition of the death penalty, speaking today on the occasion of the World Day against the Death Penalty.
10/10/2012 | Political Affairs and Democracy
“Citizens should have their say in the way public affairs are run, not only once every four or five years, but every day,” said PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon today in opening a round table entitled “Is representative democracy in crisis?”, as part of the World Forum for Democracy.
10/10/2012 | President
“Our institutional interaction is, in fact, our forte,” said Jean-Claude Mignon, the PACE President, during an exchange of views with the Ministers’ Deputies today in Strasbourg. He advocated increasing the synergy between the Organisation’s two statutory organs in the monitoring field.
09/10/2012 | President
Following his interview with Bernard Cazeneuve, French Minister responsible for European Affairs, which was held during the World Forum for Democracy, the PACE President welcomed the fact that the Minister had voiced a wish to consolidate dialogue between the French delegation to the PACE and the Government within a context devoid of any partisan spirit.
08/10/2012 | Political Affairs and Democracy
“Democracy cannot do without dynamic and prosperous markets. But economic crises pave the way for the enemies of democracy,” explained the President of the PACE today at the opening of the World Forum on Democracy plenary session on the subject “Do markets need democracy and vice-versa?”. He continued: “Yet democracy is hard to reconcile with unregulated markets. The example of the money markets provides proof, if proof were needed, of their inability to self-regulate. (…) Such regulation is difficult in an economy which is globalised but in which the political power largely remains at the national level.”
08/10/2012 | Political Affairs and Democracy
During a bilateral meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, organised on the margins of the World Forum for Democracy, PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon invited the Secretary General to address the Parliamentary Assembly at a forthcoming session. “The Secretary General highlighted the pioneering role played by the Council of Europe, and more particularly the Parliamentary Assembly, in combating violence against women, including domestic violence...,” the PACE President said.
08/10/2012 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
Tina Acketoft (Sweden, ALDE), member of PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons will make a fact-finding visit to Moscow on 9-10 October as part of the preparation of her report on “The war between Georgia and Russia: the humanitarian situation in the war-affected areas”.
08/10/2012 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
Christopher Chope (United Kingdom, EDG), member of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), will make a fact-finding visit first to Rome (9-10 October) then Sicily (11 October) as part of the preparation of his report on “The arrival of mixed migratory flows to Italian coastal areas”.
08/10/2012 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Anne Brasseur (Luxembourg, ALDE), PACE rapporteur on Tunisia, said that she was deeply troubled and concerned by the recent press reports of the rape of a young Tunisian woman by police officers. According to these reports, in early September 2012 a young Tunisian woman and her fiancé were stopped, in the middle of the night, by police officers, accused of engaging in “immoral behaviour”.