14/10/2005 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
Parliamentarians from the Council of Europe and OSCE as well as members of the European Parliament will take part in a seminar on the situation of refugees and displaced persons in the region of the Stability Pact for South-East Europe, taking place in Skopje on 17 and 18 October 2005. As well as receiving an overview of the situation in the region, participants will discuss the problems of re-integrating internally displaced persons and refugees, the danger of explosive devices and the fate of missing persons.
14/10/2005 | Monitoring
György Frunda (Romania, EPP/CD), the Chair of the Assembly's Monitoring Committee, visits Riga from 17 to 19 October 2005 to discuss progress in education reform and the speed of naturalisations with Latvian authorities as part of the Assembly’s "post-monitoring dialogue" with the country. He will meet the President, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister as well as leaders of minority groups, and will visit both a Russian-medium and a Ukrainian-medium school in Riga.
13/10/2005 | President
Following the clashes that this morning spread to a school, airport and government buildings in Nalchik city, in the Kabardino-Balkaria region of Russia, Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly President René van der Linden addressed the following message to the President of the State Duma Boris Gryzlov and to the Chairman of the Federation Council Serguei Mironov: "On behalf of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe I strongly condemn these barbaric attacks. I extend my deepest condolences to the families of the victims as well as our full solidarity with the Russian people. Whoever the authors are, they are nothing but criminals. No cause can justify terrorism and only the total rejection of violence as a means of political struggle can bring peace to the region. This attack shows the need to further improve international co-ordination against terrorism worldwide", he said.
13/10/2005 | News
According to the pre-electoral mission of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the forthcoming parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan on 6 November 2005 are a crucial opportunity for the Azerbaijani authorities to show that they have the political will and ability to organise democratic elections in line with Council of Europe standards and commitments that Azerbaijan itself subscribed to when joining the organisation. This is a chance Azerbaijan cannot afford to miss.
12/10/2005 | President
PACE President René van der Linden yesterday wrote to the Speaker of the Pakistan Parliament expressing on behalf of the Assembly his deep shock at the news of Saturday’s earthquake, expressing his deepest sympathy and extending his condolences. “Our thoughts are with the families of the victims,” the President wrote.
12/10/2005 | President
René van der Linden, speaking at the end of a two-day visit to London, said the Assembly expected the United Kingdom, like all other Council of Europe member states, to act in conformity with international human rights standards, in particular the European Convention on Human Rights. "States cannot cherry-pick from amongst their obligations: Britain, which has always led the way in promoting human rights, must be conscious of the example its actions set to the rest of the world,” he said. The Assembly would be paying close attention to the British government's anti-terrorism proposals, he warned.
12/10/2005 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s Sub-Committee on Human Rights, meeting in Geneva today, invited its Chairman, Christos Pourgourides (Cyprus, EPP/CD) to express its full support for the peaceful “Day of Solidarity” with the families and friends of four missing opposition activists and journalists: Yuri Zakharenko, Victor Gonchar, Anatoly Krasovski and Dmitri Zavadski. Grassroots initiatives such as “We Remember”, “We Want to Know the Truth”, “Free Belarus”, and “Zubr” are calling on citizens in Belarus to show their solidarity by switching off their lights on Sunday 16 October at 8 pm and to place a candle in their window.
11/10/2005 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Parliamentarians from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia will join with women’s groups in the three countries, as well as experts from the UN, to discuss gender equality in the South Caucasus at a public hearing in Tbilisi (Georgia) on Friday 14 October 2005. “Not enough attention has been paid to the situation of women in the South Caucasus,” said Rosmarie Zapfl-Helbling (Switzerland, EPP/CD), Vice-Chairperson of the Assembly's Equal Opportunities Committee, which is organising the event in collaboration with the Parliament of Georgia. “This hearing – and the report which will flow from it – aims to highlight the difficult situation many women in the area face, and to push for gender equality to be made a priority.”
11/10/2005 | News
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) President René van der Linden will participate on 12 October in Brussels in a meeting on the “Prospects for an effective EU-Russia policy and dialogue”, organized by the Platform for Democracy and Prosperity in the European Parliament (Room A5H1). The meeting will be opened at 5 p.m. by Ari Vatanen, member of the European Parliament. Guest speakers include Grigory Yavlinsky, Leader of the Yabloko Party, Gerhard Lohan, Head of Unit, External Relations-European Commission, and Tanja Lokshina, from the Center Demos.
10/10/2005 | President
“The Council of Europe is rightly proud of its achievement in making a de facto death-penalty-free zone of its 46 members, but the fight is far from being over,” PACE President René van der Linden said today in a statement on the occasion of the World Day Against the Death Penalty. "Belarus and Uzbekistan are the last executioners in the former Soviet space. The Uzbek authorities recently informed me that they are now ready to undertake serious steps towards the abolition of the death penalty. This move shall be supported by the Assembly,” he said.
07/10/2005 | News
PACE today called on the European Union to ensure that the current and any future reform of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) brings “a more efficient and fair system” which remunerates the non-economic services supplied by farmers. As examples of these services, the parliamentarians noted the protection of the environment and of animals, the maintenance of landscape and their contribution to the social and economic life of outlying regions. They also called for the setting up of a system of subsidies according to land area which also takes account of farmers’ assets and income so that small farms are given better protection.
07/10/2005 | News
The application of “accelerated asylum procedures” -the rapid processing of asylum claims- in Europe brings to light, according to PACE, many refugee and human rights concerns. At the end of a debate on the subject, the Assembly called on European governments to draw up overall guidelines that bring together best practices on accelerated asylum procedures. The parliamentarians said attention should be paid to particularly vulnerable groups, such as children or victims of torture or sexual violence or trafficking, who should not, a priori, be subjected to accelerated procedures.