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”.
05/10/2012 | Session
PACE has given its backing to a European tax on financial transactions, urging that it should cover as many countries as possible – as a first step to a global tax – and should also be levied on derivatives trading and off-exchange transactions. The Assembly, adopting a resolution based on a report by Hermine Naghdalyan (Armenia, ALDE), also said the EU should consider committing “a substantial share” of the revenue from this tax to repairing the damage caused by the financial and economic crisis, including by funding “sustainable growth, job creation, social needs and global solidarity”.
05/10/2012 | Session
In a resolution adopted today on the basis of a report by Rafael Huseynov (Azerbaijan, ALDE), PACE asked the member states to carry out a series of measures to "consolidate the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) and make it more open and attractive”. According to the adopted text, states should continue to support the development of the EHEA, ensure that the Bologna Process is implemented and foster mobility and exchanges of students, teachers, researchers and university managers.
05/10/2012 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) President Jean-Claude Mignon will chair the round table on “Is representative democracy in crisis?”, which is organised by PACE in the context of the World Forum for Democracy. It will bring together PACE members Anne Brasseur (Luxembourg, ALDE), Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC), Tiny Kox (Netherlands, UEL) and members of parliament from across the world. Andy Richardson (Interparliamentary Union) will present a Global Parliamentary Report on “The changing nature of parliamentary representation”.