27/04/2009 | Session
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) President Lluís Maria de Puig, Yves le Tallec, Departmental Councillor (Conseiller Général) of the Bas-Rhin (France) and Atle Faye, representative of the European Museum Forum will present, on Tuesday 28 April, the 2009 Museum Prize to the Zeeuws Museum of Middelburg (Netherlands), during a ceremony organised at the Palais Rohan. The museum will be presented with a bronze statuette, “La femme aux beaux seins” by Joan Miró, which the museum will keep for a year, as well as a diploma and a cheque for 5,000 euros.
27/04/2009 | President
PACE President, Lluís Maria de Puig, today recalled what he described as “so many good reasons for the Council of Europe to persevere in its mission” at a ceremony held in plenary sitting to mark the 60th anniversary of the organisation. “Our first duty is never to forget the slogan of the pioneers of European integration – never again. Nobody is ever proof against fresh excesses, which is why we must keep alert so as never to allow a recurrence of the ills that the founders of our organisation set out to eradicate,” he stressed.
27/04/2009 | Session
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) today elected Christos Pourgourides (PPE/DC) Vice-President for Cyprus.
27/04/2009 | Session
Adopting the final agenda of its spring plenary session (Strasbourg, 27-30 April 2009), PACE this morning decided to hold an urgent debate on Wednesday 29 April at 3 p.m. on the election process for the Council of Europe Secretary General. The Assembly also noted that the President of the Government of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, was to address the Assembly on Wednesday 29 April 2009 at 5.30 pm. The Minister for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation of Spain, Miguel Angel Moratinos, will address the Assembly the following day, Thursday 30 April at 11 a.m. in his capacity as Chair of the Council of Europe Committee of Ministers.
23/04/2009 | Session
Humayra Abedin, a doctor who was born in Bangladesh and is working in the United Kingdom, will give a press conference in Room 1 at 11.00 am on Tuesday 28 April, on the fringes of the PACE spring session. Accompanied by her lawyer, Anne-Marie Hutchinson, Dr Abedin will describe being held captive in Bangladesh by her family and forced to marry, and the happy ending to this affair, thanks to the new legislation on forced marriages adopted by the United Kingdom in 2007.
22/04/2009 | President
“The emergence of various forms of intolerance and racism within our communities and in relations between nations is a cause for concern. The Durban Review Conference taking place in Geneva is proof that we need to step up our efforts to combat racism,” said PACE President Lluís Maria de Puig. “On the one hand, the Conference has shown us the determination of the international community to make progress in this field, but at the same time, it provides a platform for intolerant remarks presented as anti-racism. However, denial of the Holocaust is in itself a manifestation of racism and an incitement to hatred.”
21/04/2009 | President
Attending the conference on “The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages: Achievements and Challenges”, held in Bilbao (Spain) on 20 and 21 April, PACE President Lluis Maria de Puig reiterated the Council of Europe’s commitment to promoting multilingualism in Europe. “Language is much more than a communication tool or a cultural microcosm,” he said. “Language is the foundation on which intellectual wealth and personal and collective identity are built. But above all, language is a right, and the right to language is inalienable”, he added. The PACE President expressed his belief that “the Europeans of tomorrow will be able to speak several languages.”
17/04/2009 | Session
Addresses by Finnish President Tarja Halonen and Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero are among highlights of the PACE spring session in Strasbourg on 27-30 April 2009. On the first day of the session there will be a short celebration to mark the 60th anniversary of the Council of Europe. Two requests for debates under urgent procedure have been submitted, one from the Socialist Group on the functioning of democratic institutions in Moldova, and one from the Committee of Ministers for an opinion on draft Protocol No. 14 bis to the European Convention on Human Rights, which aims at simplifying the internal procedures of the European Court of Human Rights.
17/04/2009 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
Andrew McIntosh (United Kingdom, SOC), Chair of PACE Sub-Committee on the Media, today expressed concern at reports of restrictions on the work of journalists in Moldova following the recent elections. "Especially in times of crisis and public controversies over the functioning of democratic institutions in a country, media freedom is essential for the public's right to information under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights," he said.
16/04/2009 | Monitoring
Josette Durrieu (France, SOC) and Egidijus Vareikis (Lithuania, EPP/CD), co-rapporteurs on Moldova for the Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), have sent letters to the Presidents of the Republic and the Parliament of Moldova requesting full information about the sequence of events that followed the elections on Sunday 5 April 2009.
15/04/2009 | Monitoring
“We welcome the work undertaken in the fields of legal and electoral reform in Ukraine, but it is now time that the different concept papers and draft laws are harmonised, adopted and implemented,” said PACE two co-rapporteurs on Ukraine, Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD) and Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (Germany, ALDE), speaking at the end of their visit to Kiev from 5 to 8 April 2009. The co-rapporteurs welcomed that the opinion of the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s group of independent legal experts, is regularly sought during the preparation of these laws, but stressed that its recommendations should then be reflected in the draft laws that are debated and ultimately adopted by Parliament.
14/04/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
A recent hearing in Berlin on “discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity”, organised by PACE’s Legal Affairs Committee, brought together legal experts, NGOs and academics to brief parliamentarians on why – in the words of rapporteur Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC) – “some countries are more progressive on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, and some have greater problems”.