03/10/2011 | Session
“Terrorism remains the greatest threat to the universal values of human rights. It must be considered a crime against humanity," the PACE President Mevlüt Cavusoglu said today in his opening speech of the PACE October session in Strasbourg, recalling the the massacre at Utoeya island youth camp, the bombing in Oslo and a recent bomb explosion in Ankara.
03/10/2011 | Session
When adopting the agenda of its plenary Autumn Session (3-7 October), the Assembly decided to hold an urgent debate on the political situation in the Balkans as well as a current affairs debate on the aid for countries touched by humanitarian catastrophes in East Africa. The debate on prenatal sex selection will take place this afternoon and the one on national sovereignty and statehood in contemporary international law, tomorrow evening. The President of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, will address the Assembly on Thursday 6 October.
03/10/2011 | Session
At the opening of its Autumn plenary Session (3-7 October 2011), the Assembly today elected its Vice-Presidents with respect to Finland (Susanna Huovinen), Ireland (Joe O'Reilly), Portugal (João Bosco Mota Amaral) and Turkey (Nursuna Memecan).
03/10/2011 | Session
“The Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights is gravely concerned at the recent country-wide eruption of racist hatred and threats directed against the Roma in Bulgaria. Many Roma fear for their children's and their own safety. The committee calls on the Bulgarian authorities at all levels to do their utmost to protect this vulnerable minority from attack and urges them to strongly condemn and prosecute acts of anti-Gypsyism."
03/10/2011 | Session
The reception centres in Lampedusa are not suitable holding facilities for irregular migrants, in particular Tunisians. In practice, they are imprisoned there without access to a judge, according to the PACE Ad Hoc Sub-Committee on the large-scale arrival of irregular migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees on Europe’s southern shores, in its report on its visit to Lampedusa, which was declassified today. “The reception centres should remain just that and not be turned into holding centres,” said Christopher Chope (United Kingdom, EDG).
03/10/2011 | Session
Emphasising that prenatal sex selection has reached "worrying proportions" in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, PACE today asked those countries' authorities to "investigate the causes and reasons behind skewed sex ratios at birth".
29/09/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
"Children should have the right of access to health care of the highest quality, as well as the right to protection and to participation in decisions concerning them," today said Bernard Marquet (Monaco, ALDE) in Lisbon, where he is representing PACE at the 9th Council of Europe Conference of Health Ministers, on the theme of "Child-Friendly Health Care: Building a Healthy Future for and with Children".
28/09/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Representatives of several Egyptian political parties will be in Strasbourg during PACE’s next plenary session, in response to the invitation addressed by Jean-Charles Gardetto (Monaco, EPP/CD), rapporteur on co-operation with the emerging democracies in the Arab world, and Konstantinos Vrettos (Greece, SOC), rapporteur on the situation in the Middle East, at the end of their visit to Cairo from 23 to 27 September 2011.
27/09/2011 | Monitoring
“We welcome Serbia's recent achievements and the adoption of an impressive number of laws that bring Serbia closer to European standards,” said PACE monitoring co-rapporteurs Davit Harutyunyan (Armenia, EDG) and Indrek Saar (Estonia, SOC), at the end of a visit to Serbia from 19-22 September 2011.
26/09/2011 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
“I was impressed by the progress made by the Russian Federal and local authorities in the North Caucasus in terms of construction and security in favour of the general population and IDPs,” said Nikolaos Dendias (Greece, EPP/CD), rapporteur of PACE's Migration Committee, ending a five-day visit to Moscow and the Republics of North Ossetia-Alania, Chechnya and Ingushetia as part of a fact-finding visit for his report on the “Situation of IDPs and retrurnees in the North Caucasus region”.
23/09/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“Parliamentarians have an important role to play in ensuring that governments take all necessary measures to secure fundamental social rights,” today said Carina Ohlsson (Sweden, SOC), addressing a colloquium marking the 50th anniversary of the European Social Charter in Paris. “Europe’s social achievements must be protected,” she stressed.
22/09/2011 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Jean-Charles Gardetto (Monaco, EPP/CD), PACE rapporteur on co-operation with the emerging democracies in the Arab world, and Konstantinos Vrettos (Greece, SOC), PACE rapporteur on the situation in the Middle East, will be visiting Egypt from 23 to 26 September 2011.