27/04/2005 | News
Immigrants to Europe should respect the “laws and basic values of European societies”, and should be provided with free courses on their rights and responsibilities, said PACE in a resolution adopted today. For their part, European governments should accept a number of immigrants – taking into account the host country’s labour needs and welfare capacity – while respecting their dignity and distinct identity. The aim should the “accommodation of diversity understood as a two-way process”, the parliamentarians said.
26/04/2005 | Session
The Assembly today called on the United States government to cease torturing and mistreating detainees at Guantánamo Bay – and challenged it to either try them fairly or release them, in line with international law. In a resolution adopted almost unanimously during its plenary session in Strasbourg, PACE said the US Government had “betrayed its own highest principles” in the zeal with which it had attempted to pursue the war on terror.
26/04/2005 | News
Welcoming the President of Serbia and Montenegro Svetozar Marovic today in Strasbourg, PACE President stressed that "the recent amendments to the Constitutional Charter are a welcome development, but they will have to be followed soon by a clear, convincing and feasible plan for the future of the state union". While welcoming the recent series of voluntary departures to the ICTY as a positive development in itself, Mr van der Linden regretted that "the way in which the authorities encouraged indicted war criminals to voluntarily depart for the Hague means that two thirds of citizens in Serbia consider the voluntary surrender as a 'patriotic act'. The fact that persons indicted for war crimes and crimes against humanity are perceived as heroes making a sacrifice for their homeland is certainly going against the need to critically confront the past – which is also a Council of Europe commitment," he concluded.
26/04/2005 | News
Iran as a nuclear-weapons state would “substantially increase the risk of destabilisation in the Middle East”, said PACE in a resolution adopted today. Iran, which borders three Council of Europe member states, should open all its nuclear sites to inspection to reassure the international community and suspend enrichment and reprocessing in return for economic incentives, the parliamentarians said. PACE also gave its backing to a “nuclear-free-zone” in the Middle East and pledged to help promote democracy and human rights in the country.
26/04/2005 | News
PACE today reacted to Europe’s vulnerability in the matter of energy by calling on European governments to introduce policies which would permit energy savings and a gradual transition to alternative energy sources, replacing fossil fuels, reserves of which are falling rapidly. They also asked those concerned to review their nuclear energy policies. At the end of a general debate, based on reports on Europe’s growing energy vulnerability (Radu-Mircea Berceanu, Romania, SOC) and energy systems and the environment (Bill Etherington, United Kingdom, SOC), the parliamentarians called on member states to act without delay to reduce the environmental impact of the production, transport and use of energy, by developing renewable energy sources, supporting research and development in the field of nuclear fusion, and including environmental costs in energy charges. Claude Mandil, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), who took part in the debate, emphasised that “we can and must do something at once, by making massive energy savings, concentrating on research and development, and promoting international co-operation”.
26/04/2005 | News
“Europe is our choice, the goal and the future. This cannot be just a segment of political rhetoric, but a truthful, vital long-term interest of both Serbia and Montenegro”, Svetozar Marovic, President of Serbia and Montenegro, today said addressing the Assembly. “Serbia and Montenegro will continue cooperating fully with the international institutions, especially with the Hague Tribunal. No responsible person in Serbia and Montenegro harbors illusion that we can progress without such co-operation”, M. Marovic said. Regarding the future of Kosovo, he expressed a clear message: “Kosovo must be multiethnic, Kosovo must be European, Kosovo must be open and safe for all its citizens, with the minorities carefully protected”.
25/04/2005 | News
The head of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly, Konstantin Kosachev, has been elected a PACE Vice-President. Mr Kosachev, who belongs to the European Democrat Group, is a member of the Political Affairs and Monitoring Committees.
25/04/2005 | News
Ernest Benach, President of the Conference of European Regional Legislative Assemblies (CALRE) and Speaker of the Parliament of Catalonia (Spain), today informed the PACE Committee on Local and Regional Affairs of his wish to start up a permanent dialogue with the committee and with PACE as a whole. As a first step towards cooperation, he asked the committee members to promote discussions in the Council of Europe member states on a few basic principles concerning the role of assemblies in devolution, democracy and self-government.
25/04/2005 | News
After a minute of silence in memory of Pope John-Paul II and Prince Rainier of Monaco, PACE President René van der Linden very warmly congratulated Pope Benedict XVI on his election. He expressed his support for the French journalist Florence Aubenas and her guide and for the three Romanian journalists, all of whom are missing and held hostage in Iraq, calling for their speedy release and recalling that freedom of the press and freedom of expression lie at the heart of the Council of Europe’s mission. He also appealed to PACE members, all of whom are members of national parliaments, to ensure that their leaders attend the Summit and, most of all, commit themselves fully to implementing its decisions. “We have to make further use of our double mandate, here in PACE and at home in our national Parliaments”, he said.
25/04/2005 | News
PACE’s Monitoring Committee, meeting during the plenary session, today expressed “deep concern” at the political climate in Azerbaijan ahead of parliamentary elections. “Some of the basic pre-conditions for holding free and fair elections… are not met,” the parliamentarians said in a declaration. “The opposition has almost no means of conveying its message to the electorate.” The committee also said that the situation “hardly resembled” that of Georgia and Ukraine, and that speculation on both sides with the word “revolution” could lead to unforeseen consequences.
25/04/2005 | News
There are “undeniable positive changes” in the situation of children abandoned in institutions, the Assembly said today in a resolution, but in some post-communist democracies the situation was still disturbing. Rapporteur Mike Hancock (United Kingdom, LDR), who had investigated the follow-up to his 2003 report, said that although his report focused on Romania and Bulgaria, no Council of Europe member state was beyond criticism. “The richest ingredient we can give our children is love, yet some of these children go their whole lives without experiencing it,” he said.
23/04/2005 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
“In the past few months, arrests have been made in some of the cases of ‘feminicide’ in Ciudad Juarez (Mexico), including in ‘cold’ cases going back several years, thanks to a co-ordinated prosecutorial effort on state and federal level. However, too many cases remain unsolved,” the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly’s Rapporteur on the murder and disappearance of women and girls in Mexico, Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold, said today. “It is urgent to move from audit to action in order to end the climate of impunity for gender-based violence still prevalent in the region.” The Socialist parliamentarian from Switzerland has just completed her second, five-day fact-finding visit to Mexico City and Chihuahua, where she met with victims’ families, fellow parliamentarians on federal and state level, prosecutors, NGOs, the Governor and Mayor of Chihuahua and the new Head of the State Women’s Institute, among others.