20/08/2010 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Sinikka Hurskainen (Finland, SOC), PACE rapporteur on the situation in Belarus, will make a visit to Minsk from 23 to 25 August. She will meet the Chairman of the Council of the Republic Anatoly Rubinov, the Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives and Chairman of the parliamentary Committee on relations with PACE Viktor Guminsky, the Minister of Justice Viktor Golovanov, the Prosecutor General Grigory Vasilevich, the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Valery Voronetsky, the Minister of Information Oleg Proleskovsky and the Head of the parliamentary working group on the issue of the death penalty Nikolai Samoseiko.
19/08/2010 | Prizes
A parliamentary delegation led by PACE President, Mevlüt Çavusoglu, and the Chairman of the PACE Sub-Committee on the Europe Prize, Axel Fischer (Germany, EPP/CD), will present the 2010 Europe Prize to Kharkiv’s Mayor, Gennadiy Kernes (Ukraine), at a ceremony on Monday 23 and Tuesday 24 August. Kharkiv is the first Ukrainian town to receive this honour and the 66th winning town since the prize was created in 1955.
18/08/2010 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
As aid workers fight to bring relief to those affected by the flooding in Pakistan, John Greenway (United Kingdom, EDG), Chair of PACE Migration Committee, has hailed humanitarian workers around the world as “unrecognised heroes”. In a statement issued on the eve of the second annual World Humanitarian Day – designated by the UN General Assembly to take place on 19 August each year – Mr. Greenway said: “They often work on the front-line, in difficult conditions and life-threatening situations, putting their lives at risk for the benefit of those most in need.”
12/08/2010 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Paul Flynn (United Kingdom, SOC), former PACE rapporteur on the handling of the H1N1 pandemic, has welcomed yesterday’s publication by WHO of the list of members of its Emergency Committee on the pandemic, as well as their declarations of interest. “A year ago, these 15 experts told us the world was facing a grave health emergency. On this occasion, regrettably, they got it wrong: their advice led WHO, the EU and national governments to vastly overrate the seriousness of the H1N1 epidemic.”
30/07/2010 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
PACE’s rapporteur on the death penalty has called on Thailand to abolish capital punishment, where more than 70 per cent of death row prisoners face execution for drug-related offences. Speaking in Bangkok at a seminar on “Drugs and the death penalty”, Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD) pointed out that drug-related cases were particularly prone to human error and manipulation, leading to miscarriages of justice.
27/07/2010 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
“National parliaments are key players in promoting gender equality. Progress has been made, but much remains to be done. It is time to bridge the gap between de jure and de facto equality. Drafting and adopting laws is not enough. Parliamentarians should also be accountable for the implementation of the laws and responsible for controlling the effective implementation of the laws”, José Mendes Bota, Chairperson of PACE’s Committee on equal opportunities, today said in Beirut addressing the Regional Workshop for Arab Parliaments organised by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, the IPU, the Lebanese Parliament and the UNDP.
20/07/2010 | Monitoring
Kastriot Islami (Albania, SOC) and Michael Aastrup Jensen (Denmark, ALDE), PACE co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Georgia, have expressed their satisfaction with the positive political developments that have taken place following the recent local elections in Georgia. At the end of a five-day visit to Tbilisi (12-16 July 2010), the co-rapporteurs said: “The efforts of both authorities and part of the opposition to maintain a constructive dialogue and to secure the opposition’s rightful place in the governance of the country are an important step for the consolidation of democracy in Georgia.” But they underscored that the planned electoral and constitutional reforms should be based on an all-inclusive process.
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.