26/01/2009 | Session
Candidatures for the "PACE Gender Equality Prize" may now be submitted until 1 June 2009, following extension of the deadline by the Committee. The Prize is awarded in recognition of completed or current action, schemes or initiatives by political parties that have significantly improved women’s participation in elected assemblies or political parties, or in their respective executive bodies.
26/01/2009 | Session
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) today re-elected Lluís Maria de Puig as its President. PACE also elected its Vice-Presidents:
26/01/2009 | Session
Adopting its agenda the opening of the Winter Session, the Assembly today decided to hold a current affairs debate on the situation in Gaza, on Wednesday 28. The same day, the implementation of Resolution 1633 on the consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia, adopted in October 2008, and the humanitarian consequences of the conflict will be discussed. The following day, the Assembly will hold an urgent debate on the consequences of the global financial crisis, as well as on the challenge on procedural grounds of still unratified credentials of the parliamentary delegation of Albania. In the context of the Spanish chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos will address the parliamentarians on Wednesday 28 January.
26/01/2009 | Session
“The fact that, in his very first days in office, Mr Obama called for the closure of Guantanamo Bay and demanded that the United States comply with the Geneva Conventions on prisoners of war gives us great hope that Europe and the United States will now be able to join forces in their traditional role of championing the very highest standards of international law,” Assembly President Lluís Maria de Puig today said at the opening of the Winter Session.
26/01/2009 | Session
Statement by Spain’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Co-operation, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, Chairman-in-office of the Committee of Ministers, Lluís Maria De Puig, President of the Parliamentary Assembly, and Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe: “The Holocaust is one of the darkest periods in the history of Europe. It will stay engraved forever in the memory of humankind. The International Holocaust Remembrance Day is an occasion to pay tribute to the victims and to reinforce our campaign against the racist hatred which motivated the Holocaust."
21/01/2009 | President
PACE President Lluís Maria de Puig has congratulated President Barack Obama on his inauguration, and invited him to address a plenary session of the Assembly in the near future. He warmly welcomed President Obama’s swift action – on his first day in office – to request the suspension of all military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay, and his pledge to close the detention centre altogether as soon as possible.
21/01/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Fifty years ago today, the first judges of the European Court of Human Rights were elected by PACE. Under the terms of the European Convention on Human Rights, the Assembly – made up of parliamentarians from all 47 Council of Europe member states – elects each judge from a short-list of three candidates nominated by each High Contracting Party. “For the last half century, Europe’s parliamentarians have been proud to contribute to the Court’s astonishing success, by providing it with democratic legitimacy, watching over its development and championing its work,” said Marie-Louise Bemelmans-Videc (Netherlands, EPP/CD), who currently chairs the Assembly’s Sub-committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court.
21/01/2009 | President
“I welcome the frank discussions with the Russian authorities and their willingness to engage in a constructive and open dialogue with the Assembly,” said PACE President, Lluís Maria de Puig, at the end of a visit of PACE’s Presidential Committee to Moscow on 18 and 19 January 2009. The Presidential Committee visited Moscow to discuss the implementation of Assembly Resolution 1633 (2008) on the “Consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia” with the highest Russian authorities, including the Speakers of the State Duma and Council of the Federation and Foreign Minister.
20/01/2009 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE), PACE rapporteur on the human rights situation in the north Caucasus, has expressed his profound indignation following the murder of prominent human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov.“I was deeply shocked to learn of the murder of Stanislav Markelov, who made untiring efforts to combat the impunity of those responsible for human rights violations in Chechnya and elsewhere in the north Caucasus," he said.
16/01/2009 | President
PACE Presidential Committee, led by its President, Lluís Maria de Puig, will visit Moscow on 19 January 2009 as part of the follow-up to the Assembly’s resolution on the consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia. The parliamentarians are due to meet the Speaker of the State Duma Boris Gryzlov, the Chairman of the Council of the Federation Sergey Mironov, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov, the Deputy Head of the General Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the Deputy Head of the Security Council Yury Zubakov and the Ombudsman of the Russian Federation Vladimir Lukin, as well as the members of the Russian delegation to PACE.
15/01/2009 | Session
The implementation of Resolution 1633 on the consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia, adopted in October 2008, and the humanitarian consequences of the conflict will be one of the highlights of PACE winter session, which will take place in Strasbourg from 26 to 30 January 2009. The parliamentarians will discuss the reports by Luc Van den Brande (Belgium, EPP/CD) and Mátyás Eörsi (Hungary, ALDE), co-rapporteurs of the Assembly’s Monitoring Committee, and Corien W.A. Jonker (Netherlands, EPP/CD), rapporteur of the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population, following their visits to these countries.
15/01/2009 | President
Statement by Miguel Ángel Moratinos, Chairman of the Committee of Ministers and Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs and Co-operation, and Lluís Maria De Puig, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe: “When it acceded to the Council of Europe in 2001, Azerbaijan undertook to guarantee the freedom of expression and independence of the media, which are essential preconditions for the functioning of a democratic society. We find it highly regrettable that the Azerbaijani National Radio and Television Council recently decided not to renew the licences of several foreign broadcasters."