29/05/2007 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Dick Marty (Switzerland, ALDE), the Chair of PACE's Legal Affairs Committee, has expressed his indignation at the extension of the house arrest imposed on Aung San Suu Kyi, opposition leader in Myanmar and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. Mr Marty strongly condemned this decision and denounced the systematic use of imprisonment for political reasons in the country.
27/05/2007 | President
PACE President René van der Linden today warmly welcomed the agreement reached this morning between Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko and the country’s Prime Minister, Viktor Yanukovych, on the holding of parliamentary elections on 30th September 2007.
24/05/2007 | News
The PACE Standing Committee, meeting in Belgrade today, deplored that, twelve years since the end of hostilities, the issue of the missing persons in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia remained unsolved. According to a report by Leo Platvoet (Netherlands, UEL), the number of missing persons as a result of the conflicts over the regions of Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia can be calculated at 7 538 persons.
24/05/2007 | News
While reiterating its support for the Kyoto Protocol, whose aim is to stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, the Standing Committee asked the 47 Council of Europe member states to take comprehensive measures to support natural mechanisms (forests, soils and oceans) for absorbing and storing carbon dioxide.
24/05/2007 | News
At its meeting in Belgrade today, the PACE Standing Committee recalled that the Council of Europe’s revised European Social Charter, which came into force in 1999, should be regarded as the basic core of social rights which all Council of Europe member states should guarantee for their citizens, especially the most vulnerable ones. Parliamentarians stressed that it was also a means of co-ordinating social policies.
24/05/2007 | News
The inability of women in many jurisdictions to pass on their surname – and thus part of their identity – to their children can be seen as a form of discrimination against women, but this is only one of many examples of discrimination, especially frequent in terms of women’s personal status and in family law, according to PACE rapporteur Svetlana Smirnova (Russia, EDG).
24/05/2007 | Standing Committee
That both the new Parliamentary Speaker of Serbia Oliver Dulic and the Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic chose the meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly’s Standing Committee for their first public, international addresses was “highly symbolic”, said PACE President René van der Linden, speaking at the end of the meeting. “This is a sign of the new government’s commitment to European values,” he said. “Serbia has turned a page and is ready to a new stage in its history, one with a European perspective. In the words of the slogan for the Chairmanship, ‘one Europe, our Europe’".
24/05/2007 | News
Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic stressed at the meeting of the Standing Committee in Belgrade on 24 May: "A crucial component in building a Europe without division is reconciliation. Democracy cannot flourish without a full and open account of the past. That is why the Republic of Serbia is strongly committed to full and immediate cooperation with the ICTY. All indictees must be located, arrested, and extradited. This is not only our international obligation; it is our moral duty — to our neighbours and the world, of course, but foremost to ourselves."
23/05/2007 | President
On 23 May René van der Linden made an official visit to Belgrade. He met Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica and Foreign Affairs Minister Vuk Jeremic. Discussions focused on the country’s chairmanship in the 47-member organisation, further integration of Serbia, co-operation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the issue of Kosovo.
23/05/2007 | President
PACE President René van der Linden, currently on an official visit to Belgrade, strongly condemned the recent bomb attack in Ankara. “In our societies there is no place for those who put bombs in our streets to kill innocent people. Nothing can justify such attacks, which are an assault on the fundamental principles of our societies,” he said. Expressing his firm support for the democratic institutions in Turkey he said “we have to fight those who destabilise them. We have to stand firm for democracy and the rule of law and intensify cooperation in the fight against terrorism.” He sent his condolences to the families of the victims and expressed his solidarity with the Turkish people and authorities.
23/05/2007 | President
Reacting to today’s verdict in the murder of Zoran Djindjic, Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) President René van der Linden, who is currently on an official visit to Belgrade, expressed the hope that this verdict would help to heal the wounds not only of his family, but of all those democrats who suffered, of a country which had been derailed from its firm track towards Europe. “What counts,” he said, “is that your country is back on its way towards further European integration. This is probably the best way of honouring the memory of Zoran Djinjic.” “He had paved the way for a democratic Serbia, fully complying with international law by extraditing Slobodan Milosevic to the ICTY,” said Mr van der Linden expressing the hope that the newly formed government will follow Mr Djinjic’s path.
23/05/2007 | President
René van der Linden today warmly welcomed the election of Oliver Dulić (DS) as the new Speaker of the Serbian Parliament. “His election is an important signal for the international community. He is a committed democrat and a convinced European which he has shown as former chairman of the European Integration Committee of the now-defunct parliament of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. This is good news for the country and its people, for its further European integration and last but not least for the Council of Europe, as Serbia has just taken over the Chairmanship of the Organisation’s executive, the Committee of Ministers, for six months,” Mr van der Linden said.