04/09/2009 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Expressing great concern about growing marine pollution, the Environment Committee believes a legal and institutional framework for a new ocean governance needs to be worked out and proposes establishing an integrated maritime policy based on the European Union’s “Blue Book”. According to PACE’s rapporteur Manuela de Melo (Potuglal, SOC), as the Council of Europe includes non-EU European countries and has some major coastal countries from other continents as observers, it “has a key part to play in implementing an integrated maritime policy”.
04/09/2009 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
In a report adopted today in Paris by the PACE Committee on the Environment, Bernard Marquet (Monaco, ALDE) stresses the importance of recognising access to water and sanitation as a fundamental human right. According to the rapporteur, who describes in particular the worrying situation of the Maghreb, a real water culture should become widespread, founded on integrated management that accommodates the economic, ecological and social aspects. The rapporteur also calls for inter-regional and transfrontier co-operation on water issues.
04/09/2009 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
An additional protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights, which would recognise the right to a healthy, sustainable environment, has become necessary according to José Mendes Bota (Portugal, EPP/CD), the author of a report on this issue adopted today by the Environment Committee. The inclusion of this right in the Convention would in fact enable the Court to rule directly on violations of that fundamental right, and is a natural extension of the Council of Europe’s role in environmental protection.
04/09/2009 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
“If the continuity of the Kyoto Protocol is to be ensured, an ambitious, binding new agreement will have to be concluded at the UN Climate Change conference this December in Copenhagen,” according to John Prescott (United Kingdom, SOC) in a report adopted today by the PACE Committee on the Environment. Developed countries must accept their historical responsibility for CO2 emissions since the dawn of the industrial age, the Rapporteur believes, and initiate deep and early cuts in their emissions according to the “polluter pays” principle.
02/09/2009 | President
“The agreement between Armenia and Turkey to normalise their relations is excellent news,” said PACE President Lluís-Maria de Puig. “This is something that PACE has long been hoping for, and working towards. The two governments have accepted that, whatever the difficulties of the past, they must look to the future – on behalf of all their peoples. The Assembly, a forum where Armenian and Turkish parliamentarians work together as colleagues, stands ready to help in any way it can to advance this process."
01/09/2009 | Monitoring
Mevlüt Çavusoglu (Turkey, EDG) and Kimmo Sasi (Finland, EPP/CD), co-rapporteurs of the PACE Monitoring Committee on Bosnia and Herzegovina, will start today a four-day fact-finding visit to Banja Luka, Mostar and Sarajevo to take stock of the implementation of Resolution 1626 (2008) on the honouring of obligations and commitments by Bosnia and Herzegovina towards the Council of Europe, and of progress with regard to the constitutional reform.
26/08/2009 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
A campaign called the ‘New Earth Deal’ is being launched today in London, with the support of PACE’s Environment Committee, to push for a global climate change deal at Copenhagen in which richer countries should do more. PACE’s rapporteur on climate change John Prescott (United Kingdom, SOC), a former Deputy Prime Minister who took part in the Kyoto Protocol negotiations, said developed countries must “carry a greater share of the burden of reducing emissions” because of their historic responsibility for past emissions: “They must now recognise the central principle that the polluter pays.”
21/08/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
“With yesterday’s report that Lithuania hosted a secret CIA prison, as well as other recent revelations regarding the ‘black sites’ in Poland and Romania, the time has now come for Europe to account in full for its involvement in this shameful episode," said Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE), PACE's rapporteur on secret detentions. "My own sources seem to confirm yesterday’s news report that US ‘high-value detainees’ were held in Lithuania. The authorities should now carry out a full, independent and credible investigation [into] what occurred on the outskirts of Vilnius."
18/08/2009 | Monitoring
Andres Herkel (Estonia, EPP/CD) and Evguenia Jivkova (Bulgaria, SOC), PACE monitoring co-rapporteurs for Azerbaijan, said today they were saddened to learn of the death in prison of Novruzali Mammadov, a prominent member of the Talysh ethnic community who is considered a political prisoner by the Federation of Human Rights Organizations of Azerbaijan. PACE had made numerous calls for his release, including on humanitarian grounds, given his age and state of health, which "fell on deaf ears", they said.
18/08/2009 | President
“I strongly condemn yesterday’s terrorist attack in Nazran, which will bring only further sadness and anger to this troubled part of Europe,” said Lluís Maria de Puig, the President of the PACE. “My thoughts are with those facing grief and distress.”
11/08/2009 | President
PACE President, Lluís Maria de Puig, and various Assembly rapporteurs expressed their grief and shock this morning following the murder in Grozny of Zarema Sadulayeva, head of the NGO "Save the Generation," and of her husband: "We have just been horrified to learn that the bodies of Zarema Sadulayeva, head of the NGO "Save the Generation," and of her husband, have been discovered lifeless in the boot of their car. We wish to pay tribute to the courage and commitment of Mrs Sadulayeva and above all to express our condolences to their family and our solidarity with their friends and colleagues.
07/08/2009 | President
On the eve of the 60th anniversary of PACE's first meeting, that took place on 10th August 1949, its President, Lluís Maria de Puig, gives a very positive account of its achievements, but recalls that the work of the Council of Europe and its Assembly as the “conscience of Europe” is far from over: “I am among those who consider the Organisation’s record after sixty years as very positive. At a time of budgetary austerity we can say that the Council of Europe represents “good value for money” for its Member States. It has successfully conducted a highly ambitious political project, bringing together under the same roof, around the same values, all the countries of a continent with a wide range of histories, cultures, languages and traditions...