30/10/2009 | Monitoring
Jaakko Laakso (Finland, UEL) and David Wilshire (United Kingdom, EDG), co-rapporteurs for Albania of the PACE Monitoring Committee, will be conducting a fact-finding visit to the country from 3 to 5 November to take stock of the honouring of obligations and commitments by Albania vis-à-vis the Council of Europe. Interviews are scheduled with the President of the Republic, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of Parliament, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Interior and Justice, and the President of the Constitutional Court.
26/10/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE), PACE rapporteur on the human rights situation in the North Caucasus, today expressed his shock at the murder, on Sunday 25 October, of Maksharip Aushev, Ingush opposition figure, in the region of Kabardino-Balkaria, a neighbouring republic of Ingushetia.
26/10/2009 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
The Council of Europe area has suffered a “marked setback” in the overall level of media freedom in the past three years, according to a background report by an independent expert presented today to PACE’s Sub-committee on the Media. The country-by-country report, by the academic and former BBC senior correspondent William Horsley, was commissioned as a contribution to a PACE report on media freedom being prepared by the sub-committee’s Chair Andrew McIntosh (United Kingdom, SOC), and presented at a PACE hearing today in Luxembourg.
23/10/2009 | President
At the end of his visit to Ukraine, and in view of the forthcoming Presidential election, PACE’s President today recalled the need for free and fair elections to confirm the democratic achievements of the country. Lluís Maria de Puig welcomed the willingness of the authorities to take into consideration the opinion of the Venice Commission on the Law on the Election of the President, as well as the readiness of the authorities to provide support and assistance to the work of the PACE observer delegation.
23/10/2009 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
Ways to protect journalists from electronic eavesdropping and government searches, the protection of sources and the growing number of threats facing investigative reporters across Europe are among topics to be discussed at a parliamentary hearing on media freedom in Luxembourg on Monday 26 October 2009. Organised by PACE Sub-committee on the Media, at the invitation of the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies, the event will bring together journalists, leading NGOs such as Reporters sans frontières and parliamentarians. The President of the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies Laurent Mosar will open the event.
22/10/2009 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Changing the electoral system to one more favourable to women’s representation in politics, including by introducing gender quotas, can lead to more gender-balanced, and thus more legitimate, political and public decision-making, said Lydie Err (Luxembourg, SOC) today in Kyiv on the occasion of the Forum for the Future of Democracy. Coinciding with this year's theme "Electoral systems: strengthening democracy in the 21st century", Mrs Err presented a memorandum on the "Impact of electoral systems on women’s representation in politics".
20/10/2009 | Political Affairs and Democracy
Several members of PACE will attend the Forum for the Future of Democracy in Kyiv, which starts tomorrow and continues until 23 October. This year's theme is "Electoral systems: strengthening democracy in the 21st century". During the Forum, the President of the PACE will hold meetings in Kyiv on 22 October with the President of Ukraine, the Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada (parliament), the Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs, and representatives of the various political parties represented in parliament.
19/10/2009 | President
To mark the 3rd European day against human trafficking and the EU conference on the subject in Brussels from 19 to 20 October, PACE President Lluís Maria de Puig today called on Council of Europe member states that had not already done so to sign and/or ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. He welcomed the establishment of mechanism to monitor this Convention - the Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Being, or GRETA - and invited the EU to continue to co-operate with the Council, to avoid any duplication of monitoring arrangements, and to accede to the anti-trafficking convention as soon as possible.
14/10/2009 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Local authorities will play a “crucial role” in translating the words of any coming global climate treaty into action and achieving the “deep and early cuts” in emissions that are needed, the Chair of PACE’s Environment Committee told local and regional elected representatives today.
13/10/2009 | President
PACE President Lluís Maria de Puig has ended a three-day visit to Turkey by expressing his personal support for Turkey’s accession to the European Union and his conviction that continuation of democratic reforms will help the country achieve this objective. “I expressed my appreciation for the democratic reforms accomplished by Turkey, and encouraged the authorities to continue these in order to reinforce democratic institutions in the country, including through constitutional reform,” the President said. He also called for the creation of the institution of Ombudsman, and the extension of minority rights.
13/10/2009 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
The reference framework on regional democracy that has been proposed by governments is a “poor substitute” for a full European Charter of Regional Democracy, and the Parliamentary Assembly will “continue the battle” to achieve the stronger text, the Chair of PACE’s Environment Committee told the Council of Europe Congress today. In an address to its plenary session on behalf of PACE President Lluís Maria de Puig, Alan Meale (United Kingdom, SOC) said he “deeply regretted” the decision to draft only a reference framework, instead of a Charter equivalent to the successful European Charter of Local Self-Government.
09/10/2009 | President
The Chair of the Committee of Ministers Samuel Žbogar, the PACE President Lluís Maria de Puig and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjørn Jagland today made the following statement: "We are deeply concerned that Vasily Yusepchuk, a Belarusian citizen may face imminent execution after the Belarus Supreme Court has rejected his appeal against the death penalty. We appeal to President Alyaksandr Lukashenka to grant clemency to Mr Yusepchuk, to declare forthwith a moratorium on the use of the death penalty in Belarus, and to commute the sentences of all prisoners sentenced to death to terms of imprisonment".