03/10/2012 | Session
Impunity for violent attacks against migrants in Council of Europe states represents a danger for democracy, according to participants at a hearing with representatives of Amnesty International (AI) and Human Rights Watch (HRW) organised in Strasbourg by PACE’s Migration, Refugees and Displaced Persons Committee. According to the Amnesty representative, the escalation of violence against migrants in Greece, including racially-motivated attacks, requires an urgent response that has so far not been taken.
03/10/2012 | Session
PACE has spelled out a series of specific steps for greater participation, more transparency and stronger supervision of elections across the Council of Europe area. Approving a report by Jean-Charles Gardetto (Monaco, EPP/CD), the Assembly – drawing on its experience of observing more than 140 elections to date – said election laws in Europe were a good basis, but ruling parties were failing to implement them fully. Despite “considerable improvements” in recent years, the holding of “free and fair” elections remained a major challenge, it said.
03/10/2012 | Session
“Georgia has taken an important step in consolidating the conduct of democratic elections. I particularly wish to welcome the constructive approach taken by President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has announced that he wishes to facilitate the process for forming a new government. I call for dialogue between the political forces in Georgia to ensure the success of their co-existence in the interests of the Georgian people and stability in the region,” said Jean-Claude Mignon.
03/10/2012 | Session
In today's debate on the activities of the OECD, with the participation of Secretary General Angel Gurría, the enlarged Assembly voiced its support for the priorities set by the OECD so as to respond to the challenges linked to a hesitant recovery: "go structural, go social, go green and go institutional". On the basis of a report by Jean-Marie Bockel (France, EPP/CD), it called inter alia for policies that support job creation and help the most vulnerable, in particular youth, with targeted programmes and investment in skills and education.
03/10/2012 | Session
"Social cohesion is the glue that holds society together, and it is at risk worldwide," said OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria, while addressing PACE on Wednesday. "The length and depth of the crisis is now being felt in the streets of our countries where social stress is high," added the former Mexican Finance minister, analysing the fifth year of the global economic crisis, with 48 million people unemployed in the OECD area.
03/10/2012 | Session
Only 23% of the members of national parliaments of Council of Europe member states are women, whereas they represent some 51% of the population. However, this average figure hides a huge gap between a handful of countries in which women’s representation in parliament exceeds 40 percent (Andorra, Finland, Netherlands and Sweden) and many more countries in which it is under 20 percent (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cyprus, Estonia, Lithuania, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Romania, San Marino, Slovakia, Slovenia and Turkey), or in some cases even under 10 percent (Georgia, Hungary, Malta, Russian Federation and Ukraine).
03/10/2012 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
On the occasion of its 9th meeting, the Network of contact parliamentarians of the Council of Europe ONE in FIVE Campaign to stop sexual violence against children considered, with two experts, how to encourage children to protect themselves from sexual abuse. Ms Maury Pasquier, the Chairperson of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development, stated that “this is a sensitive subject where a balance has to be found between giving children the tools to say “no” when faced with sexual violence, whilst taking care not to give them too much responsibility”.
03/10/2012 | Session
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has reaffirmed its support for general criteria put forward by independent experts in 2001 to define the notion of political prisoners and called on all Council of Europe member States to reassess the cases of any alleged political prisoners by applying these criteria and release or retry any such prisoners as appropriate. Adopting a resolution based on a report by Christoph Strässer (Germany, SOC), the Assembly said the criteria are summed up as follows...
03/10/2012 | Session
“When foreign policy neglects human rights for too long and focuses solely on strategic economic and geopolitical interests, human rights crises may erupt and ‘humanitarian interventions’ become urgent and moral necessities”; Europe can’t afford to have another Srebrenica – foreign policy can no longer neglect human rights, said Pietro Marcenaro (Italy, SOC) today, when presenting his report on human rights and foreign policy.
03/10/2012 | Session
Addressing the Parliamentary Assembly today, Nicolae Timofti, President of the Republic of Moldova, called for Transnistria to be reintegrated into the Republic of Moldova with a “comfortable level of self governance”, and insisted that Russian forces should be withdrawn. “The perpetuation of the Transnistrian conflict undermines our national security and territorial integrity, hampers economic development and divides society,” he said.
02/10/2012 | Session
Edmond Panariti, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Albania and Chairman of the Committee of Ministers, presented to the Parliamentary Assembly, the developments during his country’s Chairmanship since the previous Assembly session last June. Recalling that under the motto “unity in diversity,” Albania’s Chairmanship is focusing, among other priorities, on promoting sustainable democratic societies, Mr Panariti referred to the “2012 Exchange on the religious dimension of intercultural dialogue” that took place in Dürres in early September.
02/10/2012 | Session
In its first full monitoring assessment in seven years, PACE has urged the newly-elected President Putin to “democratise the system” in Russia. In a resolution based on a report by György Frunda (Romania, EPP/CD) and Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC), the Assembly said Russia was “at a unique moment” in its short history of democratic development and needed concrete reforms to realise the potential of the “momentum for change” created by recent events, such as the mobilization of more than 100,000 citizens following recent elections, the awakening of a very engaged civil society and the willingness of the authorities to hear the call for reforms.