12/11/2004 | President
Assembly President Peter Schieder yesterday offered his condolences to the Palestinian people, “who have lost their historic leader”. He paid tribute to Yasser Arafat for his “unerring support for the Palestinian cause and for striving throughout his life to enable his people to exercise their fundamental rights, as recognised by the United Nations, and live on their land, in peace with their neighbours, in a Palestinian state.” He finally expressed the hope that, despite the current deadlock, Palestinian and Israeli political leaders will meet their responsibilities and that the peace process will resume.
12/11/2004 | Political Affairs and Democracy
“Yasser Arafat successfully ensured that the international community accepted the principle of an independent sovereign state of Palestine”, said the Chair of PACE’s Sub-Committee on the Middle East Lord Kilclooney. “A great memorial to his life would be the creation of a democratic Palestine.” He added: “Personally, I will always recall the warmth and courtesy which he extended to our committee members on our visits to his presidential compound in Ramallah.”
12/11/2004 | News
It is time for national parliaments in South-East Europe to take the lead in overseeing the Stability Pact, according to the head of the PACE delegation to a conference on the Pact’s efforts to fight organised crime in the region. Addressing the fifth conference of the Parliamentary Troika – which brings together the parliamentary bodies of the Council of Europe, OSCE and European Union to support and oversee the Pact – Tony Lloyd (United Kingdom, SOC) said: “Our conferences sometimes amounted to speaking about countries directly affected by the Pact, not with them.” He also called for more focused meetings on narrower subjects.
10/11/2004 | News
A seminar for senior legal advisers from the parliaments of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, organised at the initiative of PACE Secretary General Bruno Haller, concluded in Strasbourg yesterday with expressions of warm appreciation from all three delegations. The Assembly’s Director of Interparliamentary Relations Jan Kleijssen said the seminar – the first of its kind, which included briefings on monitoring procedures, ratification of Council of Europe treaties, human rights standards and the work of the Court – had been intended to “respond to practical needs” in a key area of parliamentary work, and pledged further assistance in the future.
08/11/2004 | Election observation
The 7 November referendum in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia on the redrawing of municipal boundaries was generally consistent with OSCE and Council of Europe standards for democratic electoral processes, international observers concluded today. "The referendum was an opportunity to confirm the maturity and self-confidence of all the people of this country for the consolidation of democracy," said Zekeriya Akcam, head of the PACE observer delegation.
05/11/2004 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
A centre to commemorate victims of deportations, mass expulsions and population transfers should be created under the auspices of the Council of Europe, according to a draft report of PACE’s Migration Committee discussed in Geneva on 5 November. Presenting the idea to the committee, Mats Einarsson (Sweden, UEL) said such a centre – which could be endorsed by European heads of state at the Council of Europe's Third Summit in May – would raise public awareness and promote research on mass deportations past, present and future in the Council of Europe’s 46 member states, carried out "due to a political decision".
05/11/2004 | President
PACE President Peter Schieder today welcomed the signing by President Putin of the Kyoto Protocol, the international agreement intended to combat global warming. He welcomed the role which the Assembly had played in the process of implementation of the Protocol, which, following ratification by Russia, would finally be able to come into force. Russia’s signature came just before the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change (Buenos Aires, 6-17 December 2004), at which the Assembly would be represented. The Protocol had been ratified by the Duma on 22 September and approved by the Federation Council on 27 October.
02/11/2004 | Election observation
The first round of voting in the 31 October presidential election in Ukraine did not meet a considerable number of OSCE, Council of Europe and other European standards for democratic elections, concluded the International Election Observation Mission in a preliminary statement. Nevertheless, the very high participation of the electorate and civil society in the election process show encouraging signs for the evolution of Ukrainian democracy. A 40-member PACE delegation, headed by Doros Christodoulides (Cyprus, UEL), took part in the observation.
29/10/2004 | President
Foreign Minister of Norway, Jan Petersen, in his capacity as Chairman of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, Parliamentary Assembly President Peter Schieder and Secretary General of the 46-nation Organisation Terry Davis welcomed the signing of the Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe in Rome today as a significant step in the European integration process.
29/10/2004 | Migration, International Protection and Economic Co-operation
The creation of a centre to commemorate the victims of expulsions and mass deportations in Europe - and to help prevent them ever happening again - is to be discussed by parliamentarians, historians and experts in international law during a public seminar in Geneva on 4 November. The seminar, on “the establishment of a centre for European nations’ remembrance under the auspices of the Council of Europe”, has been organised by the Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population of the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), partly in response to the debate in Germany over the establishment of a “Centre Against Expulsions” in Berlin.
29/10/2004 | Monitoring
David Atkinson (United Kingdom, EDG) and Rudolf Bindig (Germany, SOC), co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Russia, hold a final series of meetings in Moscow from 1 to 6 November, before drawing up their progress report, due for plenary debate in mid-2005.
29/10/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
An expert from Russian oil company Lukoil and a representative of the Council of Baltic Sea States discuss the environmental impact of this planned oil extraction operation in the Baltic, close to a UNESCO world heritage site at a meeting of the Committee on the Environment, Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs in Paris on 4 November. An outline report by Daniel Goulet (France, LDR) explains the background.