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Parliamentary and Electoral Cooperation Division

Functioning

To further interaction with national parliaments, in 2012, a Parliamentary Project Support Division (PPSD) was created within the Assembly secretariat, whose prime objective is, in partnership with the secretariats of PACE Committees and other sectors of the Council of Europe secretariat, to develop interparliamentary co-operation and promote specific co-operation projects involving parliamentarians and staff of national parliaments.

It is intended to ensure that the PACE's key recommendations are better known and implemented by national parliaments of member States and beyond. The capacity to achieve tangible results remains the key criterion that has guided the design of the activities proposed such as thematic conferences for Members of Parliament or capacity building seminars for the staff of national parliaments. Importance has also been given to identifying issues and projects on which it will be possible to build over time. Although the plan of activities is formulated and approved by the Bureau of the Assembly for one year (see: Work Plan), a number of initiatives are conceived with a two or three-year horizon.

The parliamentary dimension is at the core of the fund-raising initiatives, which will be pursued to support pears-to-pears interparliamentary co-operation activities. Since 2012 external partners have been providing additional funding to the Assembly's parliamentary co-operation, recognising the added value of its initiatives in reinforcing democratic and legislative reforms.

PACE’s cooperation activities focus on the core values and standards of the Council of Europe, regularly debated by the Assembly, the main purpose of which is to strengthen the impact of the work of PACE on national parliaments and to better promote and protect human rights, the rule of law and democratic governance in all European countries as well as in observer and partner for democracy to the PACE parliaments.

More impact for PACE’s work

Since 2012 over 150 activities have taken place to improve PACE's visibility and to advance a better implementation of its adopted texts. 75% of these activities were used to promote dialogue between parliamentarians, PACE partners; 25% were training seminars for staff of national parliaments. Every year our team organises around 20 activities, attended by more than 600 participants.

We have developed the parliamentary dimension of the three Council of Europe-wide joint regional programmes financed by the European Union and the Council of Europe (see: Joint programmes with EU), in co-operation with the CoE Office of the Directorate General of Programmes (ODGP):

  • South Programme (or Southern Neighbourhood) for the Southern Mediterranean region (co-operation with the Parliaments of Morocco, Jordan, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon and with the Palestinian National Council);
  • Partnership for Good Governance for the EU’s Eastern Partnership countries (co-operation with the Parliaments of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine);
  • Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Türkiye (co-operation with the Parliaments of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia and Serbia).

PACE Cooperation Programmes’ budget, reinforced by different Action Plan funds, permitted us to develop a number of country specific activities with Ukraine, Georgia and Morocco (see: Country specific projects) but also thematic activities with all member States such as a series of meetings on the role of national parliaments in guaranteeing the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights or on electoral system (see: Thematic projects).