26/08/2004 | Standing Committee
The Standing Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly is to meet on 7 September in Oslo at the invitation of the Norwegian Parliament. The meeting will be opened at 11am by the President of the Assembly, Peter Schieder, and the Speaker of the Storting (Norwegian Parliament), Jørgen Kosmo. The participants will exchange views with Jan Petersen, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Norway (which currently holds the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe), and with Terje Rød-Larsen (to be confirmed), United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process.
24/08/2004 | News
Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC) and Tadeusz Iwiński (Poland, SOC) - Assembly rapporteurs on the political and humanitarian aspects of the situation in the Chechen Republic (respectively) - visited the region from 27 to 31 August 2004 as part of the preparations for their reports. The parliamentarians lead a Council of Europe delegation also including Jean-Claude Frecon (France, SOC) and Pascal Mangin (France, EPP/CD) - both members of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe - as well as two experts. They will give a press conference at the Interfax headquarters in Moscow on Wednesday 1 September at 10 a.m.
13/08/2004 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
At the end of a fact-finding visit to Mexico from 9 to 13 August, Swiss parliamentarian Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold (SOC), who is preparing a report on "The disappearance and murder of a great number of women and girls in Mexico" for the Assembly's Committee on Equal Opportunities for women and men quoted two concrete cases of what she said should be called 'feminicides'. “On 28 February 2002, Clara Hernández Martines and her four children die in a fire set by an uncle in Ciudad Juárez. He declares he set the fire because she called him gay. On 22 September 2002, the body of Erika Pérez Escobedo is found at the side of a road in Ciudad Juárez. Despite the fact that the body shows signs of secual abuse and strangulation, the state prosecutor asserts she has died from an overdose and closes the case. These are only two of the over 300 cases of women and girls who have disappeared or been murdered in in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua (Mexico) since 1993," Mrs Vermot-Mangold said.
12/08/2004 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
On the eve of the Athens Olympics, Manuela Aguiar (Portugal, EPP/CD), who is preparing a report on “Discrimination against women and girls in sport”, has denounced discrimination against women in sport – pointing out that women remain under-represented in sport, continue to face sexist stereotyping in the sports media and have only a handful of top jobs in sport’s governing bodies.
12/08/2004 | Monitoring
“Society in Azerbaijan is increasingly polarised, resulting in a political impasse; social divisions are widening, with a very small minority growing disproportionately rich while the vast majority struggle to get by.” This is how Andreas Gross (Switzerland, SOC) assessed the situation in the country after a fact-finding visit from 4 to 9 August.
29/07/2004 | Monitoring
The Chairperson of the Assembly’s Monitoring Committee, Josette Durrieu, has condemned in the strongest terms recent attempts by the “authorities” in the Moldovan region of Transnistria to close schools and an orphanage. In a letter to the President of the Moldovan Parliament Eugenia Ostapciuc, Mrs Durrieu said she hoped this question could be resolved as soon as possible through dialogue and asked to be kept informed of latest developments.
19/07/2004 | News
The Council of Europe wishes to entrust transcription of the verbatim reports of the four annual part-sessions of the Parliamentary Assembly in English and French to an outside service-provider and is therefore calling for tenders. If the conditions of this tender suit you, you are welcome to submit your bid; your reply must be postmarked Friday 6 August 2004 at the latest.
08/07/2004 | Monitoring
Following this morning’s incidents in South Ossetia, the Assembly's co-rapporteurs for the monitoring of Georgia have called on Russia to use its political and diplomatic influence to enable the region to enter into dialogue with the Georgian authorities. Speaking at a press conference at the end of a four-day visit to Tbilisi and Batumi, Matyas Eörsi (Hungary, LDR) and Evgeni Kirilov (Bulgaria, SOC) also said they firmly supported the Georgian government’s efforts to regain the country’s territorial integrity through peaceful means.
07/07/2004 | President
On hearing of the death of Austrian President Thomas Klestil, Parliamentary Assembly President Peter Schieder today expressed his profound sadness at the loss of a convinced European, totally committed to the process of European integration. He recalled that, when addressing the Parliamentary Assembly in January 2003, Mr Klestil had spelled out a vital and enduring end-goal for the consolidation of Europe, one which the Assembly – via its 600-plus parliamentarians – still endeavours to pursue: “At the very moment when Europe is on the verge of wiping out the divisions and dividing lines of the past, it seems to me more important than ever to promote dialogue on our common European future. This dialogue must be global, going beyond national or international institutions, and must involve civil society. In fact, I believe that our united Europe will endure only if it enjoys the participation and the ongoing confidence of all its citizens,” Mr Klestil had said. On behalf of the Parliamentary Assembly, Mr Schieder sent a letter of condolence to the widow of the Austrian President.
05/07/2004 | Culture, Science, Education and Media
Edward O’Hara (United Kingdom, SOC), General Rapporteur on the Cultural Heritage of the Assembly’s Committee on Culture, Science and Education, visited from 12 to 14 July the site of the Rosia Montana gold mine, in the Apuseni mountains of western-central Romania, to assess whether plans to re-activate mining activities respect this archaeological site. He met representatives of Romanian authorities, the mine’s owners and NGOs opposed to the plan, and will report back to the committee with his conclusions after the summer.
05/07/2004 | Equality and Non-Discrimination
Ruth-Gaby Vermot-Mangold (Switzerland, SOC), who is preparing a report on "The disappearance and murder of a great number of women and girls in Mexico" for the Committee on Equal Opportunities, is currently on a fact-finding visit in Mexico (9 - 13 August) at the invitation of the Mexican observer delegation to the Assembly. In a February 2004 motion, 54 Assembly members noted the apparent disappearance of many hundreds of young women from the cities of Ciudad Juárez, Tijuana and Chihuahua in the last ten years, possibly linked to sexual exploitation. Mrs Vermot-Mangold has requested to meet federal and regional authorities, prosecutors working on some of the cases and NGOs campaigning on the issue. Mrs Vermot-Mangold will give a press conference at the Mexican Senate on Friday 13 August at 12.30.
05/07/2004 | Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development
Michael Hancock (United Kingdom, LDR), who is assessing the follow-up to the Assembly’s April 2003 recommendation on “Improving the lot of abandoned children in institutions” for the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee, will visit Bulgaria from 24 to 27 August. Accompanied by Bulgarian Assembly member Darinka Stantcheva, he is due to visit a number of orphanages and day-care centres in Sofia as well as meeting government ministers and other authorities responsible for childrens’ matters and childrens’ NGOs.