04/10/2004 | News
Council of Europe Secretary General, Terry Davis, today called on next year’s Summit of Heads of State and Government, which will take place in Warsaw on 16 and 17 May, to clearly define the organisation’s future role. "To succeed, we must first have a mission statement, a clear mandate defining the role and responsibilities of the Council of Europe, agreed by our member states. The Summit will be the occasion to reaffirm the responsibilities of our organisation in its special areas of activity and our specific role in relation to other institutions," he said.
04/10/2004 | News
Lluis Maria de Puig (Spain, SOC) was today elected President of the PACE Socialist Group. A member of the Assembly since 1979, he has been a Vice-president since June 2004, and is Chairperson of the Committee on Culture, Science and Education. Lluis Maria de Puig, who was also President of the WEU Assembly from 1997 to 2000, has presented over 40 reports and resolutions to the Assembly. He is the author of fifteen books on modern history and politics, including a “History of European Unity”, “The Rape of Europe” and “Europe against War”.
04/10/2004 | News
World trade is increasing, up by an expected 8 per cent in 2004. Yet if globalisation is to benefit all the world’s population, according to the Assembly final agreement within the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on the so-called “Doha development agenda” is urgently needed. Adopting a resolution on “The Doha Development Agenda: world trade at a crossroads” (Kimmo Sasi, Finland, EPP/CD), the Assembly welcomed the promise by richer countries to phase out all export subsidies in agriculture, but it said there needs to be parallel progress in the liberalisation of services and lower industrial tariffs. It also called on “national parliaments to pursue and strengthen parliamentary oversight of WTO activities in shaping the multilateral trading system”.
02/10/2004 | News
The President of the Assembly today signed a co-operation agreement with the Vice-President of the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe's body of independent experts on constitutional law, in which the two bodies agreed to collaborate more closely on standard-setting and electoral laws, take part in each others’ activities and share information. They also agreed to draw up a report setting out the “core values and standards of the Council of Europe” and to give more prominence to defining democratic standards to match the comprehensive human rights standards already developed by the organisation.
30/09/2004 | President
'Today’s green light by the Russian Government for the Kyoto Protocol is excellent news,' said PACE President Peter Schieder. The Assembly is due to debate global warming during its plenary session next week in Strasbourg. 'Russia – and those other states which have taken this step – are doing the right thing for humanity. I now call on the State Duma to ratify the protocol as soon as possible, paving the way for its entry into force.', he added.
29/09/2004 | Election observation
A five-member cross-party pre-election delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)* visited Ukraine from 26 to 29 September to assess the political situation in the country in the run-up to the 31 October presidential election as well as the state of preparedness of Ukraine’s institutions for the conduct of the vote. It issued the following statement:
29/09/2004 | News
In a letter to the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers, PACE President Peter Schieder today called on the organisation's executive body to prevent Belarus Sports Minister, formerly Interior Minister, Y.L. Sivakov, from attending the 45-nation organisation's 10 th Conference of European Ministers responsible for Sport in Budapest on 14-15 October 2004. Mr Sivakov is alleged in the PACE report on "disappeared persons in Belarus" to have been involved in the disappearance of opposition figures. On the basis of PACE Resolution 1371 (2004), the European Union had prevented Mr Sivakov from attending the Olympic Games. On 27 September the EU decided to restrict admission to its territory of those who are considered by the PACE report to be key actors in the disappearances as well as those considered primarily responsible for failing to initiate an investigation and prosecution of the alleged crimes.
28/09/2004 | Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (Germany, LDR), who is preparing a report for the Assembly on “the circumstances surrounding the arrest and prosecution of leading Yukos executives”, yesterday attended a Moscow court hearing of jailed executives Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Alexei Pichugin. During her two-day visit, Mrs Leutheusser – a former German Justice Minister – also intends to meet prosecutors, Yukos executives, lawyers involved in the case and human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin. Her draft report is due to be made public possibly in mid-November.
28/09/2004 | President
PACE President Peter Schieder today expressed profound relief at the liberation of Simona Torretta and Simona Pari, two Italian female aid workers held hostage in Iraq for three weeks. At the same time, he repeated his call for the unconditional release of all the other hostages in Iraq.
27/09/2004 | News
An urgent debate on the challenge of terrorism in Council of Europe member states as well as a joint debate on the political, human rights and humanitarian situation in the Chechen Republic are among highlights of the PACE session, which takes place in Strasbourg from 4 to 8 October 2004. Other items due for debate include the functioning of democratic institutions in Serbia and Montenegro and in Azerbaijan, the honouring of obligations and commitments by Armenia, as well as women’s participation in elections. Guest speakers include Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Crown Prince Albert of Monaco – who is due to address the parliamentarians just before the ceremony for Monaco’s accession – and the President of the new Pan-African Parliament Gertrude Mongella.
23/09/2004 | President
"My home country, Austria, has eight million inhabitants. Today, in Africa alone, there are fourteen million children orphaned by AIDS. I am saying these numbers aloud, because they help me to put this tragedy into a proper perspective," PACE President told participants at the African-European parliamentary consultation on children orphaned by AIDS in Africa, organised in Cape Town on 23 September. "For my part, I intend to make an initiative for a report by the Assembly in form of a critical analysis of wider Europe’s contribution, so far, to the efforts to alleviate the humanitarian, social and economic consequences caused by the AIDS epidemic in Africa. I will also call for a set of clear and concrete recommendations on how Europe should proceed in the future, in order to make its help more focused and efficient. Finally, I will personally make sure that the question of help for Africa’s children orphaned by AIDS is put on the agenda of my parliament in Vienna," he concluded.
22/09/2004 | Election observation
A five-member, cross-party PACE delegation will make a “pre-election” visit to Ukraine to assess the situation in the country ahead of the 31 October presidential election. The delegation is due to meet the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament and the Chairmen of the Central Election Commission, Supreme and Constitutional Courts as well as the Foreign and Interior Ministers, NGOs, the media and other international observers. Members of the “pre-election” delegation will give a press conference at 12 noon on Wednesday 29 September (Room 12 of the Verkhovna Rada, Hrushevskoho Street, 18/2, Kyiv).