20/07/2010 | President
“The renewal of politics requires greater responsiveness and accountability, as well as transparency, on the part of those who govern, and on the part of civil society actors who participate in the political debate,” said Mevlüt Çavusoglu, speaking today on the occasion of the 3rd World Conference of Speakers of Parliament organised by the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva. The broad theme for the 2010 conference (the two previous ones were held in New York in 2000 and 2005 respectively) is “Parliaments in a world of crisis: securing global democratic accountability for the common good”.
16/07/2010 | President
“Combating violence against women, especially in the private sphere, should be enhanced in Europe with a legally binding instrument. I therefore invite the Ministers of Justice to support the current drafting of a convention which can effectively combat the most widespread and most severe forms of violence against women, including domestic violence, and that should encompass the gender dimension”, today declared in Tromsø Carina Hägg (Sweden, SOC), Chair of the PACE Sub-Committee on violence against women, at the opening of the 29th Conference of Council of Europe Ministers of Justice.
16/07/2010 | President
“Combating violence against women, especially in the private sphere, should be enhanced in Europe with a legally binding instrument. I therefore invite the Ministers of Justice to support the current drafting of a convention which can effectively combat the most widespread and most severe forms of violence against women, including domestic violence, and that should encompass the gender dimension”, today declared in Tromsø Carina Hägg (Sweden, SOC), Chair of the PACE Sub-Committee on violence against women, at the opening of the 29th Conference of Council of Europe Ministers of Justice.
15/07/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Dick Marty, PACE rapporteur on the human rights situation in the North Caucasus, has pointed out that the murderers of Natalia Estemirova, a member of Russian NGO Memorial, in Chechnya on 14 July 2009 have so far escaped punishment. "The Russian authorities must do everything possible to achieve justice in this emblematic case, as well as in others such as the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, so as to send a clear signal that the cycle of abuse and impunity will no longer be tolerated in the Chechen Republic."
14/07/2010 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Evoking the drafting of the future EU directive on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings, José Mendes Bota (Portugal, EPP/CD), Chairperson of the PACE Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, today expressed his concern “regarding duplication of Council of Europe and the European Union’s work, and a possible proliferation of monitoring processes”, while addressing the EP Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality in Brussels.
09/07/2010 | Monitoring
Kastriot Islami (Albania, SOC) and Michael Jensen (Denmark, ALDE), PACE co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Georgia, will make a fact-finding visit to this country from 12 to 15 July, as part of their ongoing assessment of the honouring of Georgia’s Council of Europe obligations and commitments. Discussions should focus on the reform of the justice sector, human rights protection, decentralisation and local self-government, media pluralism as well as the fight against corruption.
09/07/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Rapporteur of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on the human rights situation in the North Caucasus, Dick Marty (Switzerland/ALDE) has described as "unacceptable and unworthy" the words of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, who publicly described the staff of Russian human rights NGO Memorial as "enemies of the people, enemies of the law, enemies of the state".
03/07/2010 | President
“I am shocked to learn of the explosion in the divided town of Mitrovica which has killed one person and injured 11 others,” said PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu in a statement. “I want to extend my most heartfelt condolences to the family of the victim and a quick recovery to the wounded, and call on all parties to remain calm. Violence is not the answer to the situation in Kosovo.*”
02/07/2010 | Monitoring
PACE monitoring co-rapporteurs György Frunda (Romania, EPP/CD) and Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC) will make a fact-finding visit as part of their ongoing assessment of the state of Russia’s honouring of its Council of Europe obligations and commitments.
02/07/2010 | President
PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu has expressed his satisfaction at the current positive climate in relations between PACE and Russia. Speaking in a press conference at the end of a two-day visit to Moscow (1-2 July 2010), the President said: “There remain questions on which our opinions differ, and there are demands which Russia has to fulfill, but if we work as partners, with mutual respect and without double standards, I am sure that progress can be achieved even on these difficult issues.”
02/07/2010 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The Director General of the World Health Organisation Margaret Chan has told PACE rapporteur Paul Flynn (United Kingdom, SOC) that she “welcomes criticism” when it helps her organisation to improve its performance, and pledged a “transparent and independent” review of how the WHO handled the H1N1 pandemic. “The WHO needs people to fully understand its work,” said Dr Chan, meeting Mr Flynn, who is PACE’s rapporteur on the handling of the pandemic, today in Geneva. They agreed that “when difficult decisions need to be taken in the midst of profound uncertainty, all views should be listened to and taken into account”.
29/06/2010 | Political Affairs and Democracy
In an information note on her fact-finding visit to Brussels from 9 to 10 June 2010, the rapporteur on the impact of the Lisbon Treaty on the Council of Europe (Kerstin Lundgren, Sweden, ALDE) considers that while the technical details posed by the EU accession to the European Convention on Human Rights should be tackled at the intergovernmental level, it is the role of parliamentarians “to provide a powerful political signal in favour of a smooth accession process and its rapid completion”. According to Mrs Lundgren, accession modalities “should be kept as simple as possible”.