12/03/2012 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Restrictions on an individual’s movement – such as a visa ban or refusing entry to a country – should never be used as a sanction for holding “peacefully-held political opinions”, PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee has said in a draft resolution adopted today in Paris.
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
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.
09/03/2012 | Monitoring
After his talks in Podgorica, including visits to refugees and displaced persons in the Konik camp, Jean-Charles Gardetto (Monaco, EPP/CD), PACE Rapporteur on the monitoring of Montenegro, stated that he was expecting a major political gesture from the Montenegrin authorities: “Montenegro generously took in over 120 000 refugees and displaced persons fleeing the war in former Yugoslavia and Kosovo. Now the authorities can seize this historical opportunity to integrate those who will not or cannot go back home..."
08/03/2012 | Bureau
PACE Bureau meeting in Paris on 8 March 2012, International Women’s Day, recalls that every year for over a century, this day has drawn our attention to the fact that women and men do not have the same opportunities in life. This year it should also remind us that equality and democracy are inextricably linked and that one cannot exist without the other.