29/03/2011 | President
“The North-South Prize has a special meaning, which goes beyond being a simple reward. It is a symbol and a cause”, PACE President Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said today at the North-South Prize award ceremony in Lisbon. “It is a symbol of the one world in which we are all living, a world in which the North and the South, the East and the West, should be nothing more than geographical references”, he stressed.
25/03/2011 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu will make a working visit to the Czech Republic from 30 March to 1 April 2011. His schedule includes meetings with the Prime Minister Petr Necas, the President of the Senate Milan Stech, the Vice-President of the Senate Alena Gajduskova, the President of the Chamber of Deputies Miroslava Nemcova, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Vladimir Galuska, as well as the Mayor of Prague.
25/03/2011 | Monitoring
PACE’s Monitoring Committee today appointed Kerstin Lundgren (Sweden, ALDE) and Jana Fiszcherová (Czech Republic, EDG) as co-rapporteurs to prepare an opinion on the motion “Serious setbacks in the fields of the rule of law and human rights in Hungary” to be submitted to the Bureau of the Assembly.
25/03/2011 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has expressed serious concern that, almost six months after the 2010 general elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, authorities have not been established at every level, stalling urgently-needed reforms.
25/03/2011 | Monitoring
Adopting a draft resolution on the honouring of obligations and commitments by Georgia, PACE Monitoring Committee today welcomed “the significant efforts” made by the authorities in honouring their remaining obligations and the “considerable progress” achieved since the last monitoring report adopted in 2008.
25/03/2011 | Monitoring
“We urge all political parties in Moldova to find a consensus and put an end to the political deadlock which has lasted now for almost two years,” declared PACE co-rapporteurs Lise Christoffersen (Norway, SOC) and Piotr Wach (Poland, EPP/CD), speaking at the end of their first fact-finding visit to Moldova from 21-24 March 2011. “The election of a President will contribute to political stability, give an impetus for the necessary reforms and improve citizens’ fundamental rights," they added.
23/03/2011 | Monitoring
At the end of a two-day visit to Yerevan, the PACE monitoring co-rapporteurs for Armenia, John Prescott (United Kingdom, SOC) and Axel Fischer (Germany, EPP/CD) have welcomed the significant number of reforms with regard to the police, judiciary and election framework that were initiated by the authorities to address the recommendations made in the wake of the March 2008 events by, among others, PACE and the National Assembly of Armenia.
23/03/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
With a view to the preparation of a report on the health hazards of heavy metals by Jean Huss (Luxembourg, SOC), the Social Affairs Committee held an exchange of views on the dangers of using mercury in dental treatments. Mr Huss pointed out that a growing number of illnesses, in particular chronic diseases, are thought to be caused by heavy metals and other chemical substances that are omnipresent in our living environment.
23/03/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Participants at a hearing in Paris today organised by the Social Affairs Committee looked at the steps Europe could take to help children in the aftermath of natural disasters and crisis situations, with the focus on Haiti. "Children are the most vulnerable at every level in crisis situations", said Françoise Hostalier (France, EPP/CD), the rapporteur on the subject.
22/03/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
"The issue of water encompasses complex realities affecting all the world's regions and populations, especially the most vulnerable, as water is very much the focus of sharp tensions, threatening regional stability and security worldwide". So said Bernard Marquet, member of the PACE Environment Committee and author of the report "Water – a source of conflict", speaking at the Conference on conventions on international water, organised in Monaco by the Monegasque National Council and the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly.
22/03/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
One quarter of European schoolchildren are overweight or obese, the levels of excess weight and obesity being greater in southern Europe than in northern European counterparts, Michael Hancock (United Kingdom, ALDE) underlines in his report on safeguarding children and young people from obesity and type 2 diabetes. The islands of Malta, Sicily, Gibraltar and Crete are particularly concerned, as well as the countries of Spain, Portugal and Italy, with levels exceeding 30 per cent among children aged 7 to 11.
22/03/2011 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
In the past, producers and consumers of child abuse images constituted a very small and marginal group. However, the ability to interconnect people and share images and videos through the Internet has resulted in an explosion in the number of worldwide paedophiles, participants said at a hearing on "combating child pornography as part of the campaign to stop sexual violence against children" organised by the Social Affairs Committee in Paris today.