26/06/2019 | 16:40:26 Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, one clever man whose name was Mr Viktor IELENSKYI, you probably remember this man. He said very often we are trying to solve political and moral problems using technical means. We are failing generally. What we are doing this week here is we are trying to invent a technical device to solve the so-called Russian problem. But the Russian problem is not a technical problem, it is a moral problem. So we're trying to solve a moral problem with technical means... 24/06/2019 | 18:05:42 Thank you Madam Chairperson. Today in the morning one Russian journalist called me and asked what will I think about Russia's victory. About Russia's great victory. I was surprised a little bit, and I said, is the Council of Europe the battlefield? He said yes, of course. Russia is fighting for its honour and place here. So probably today or tomorrow we will have Russia's victory. And I would like to reflect on that. You know, in my life I experienced a few, even many Russian victories... 11/04/2019 | 11:35:40 I thank all the speakers for their proposals and ideas. I emphasise that the report was not written at the wish of any political group or organisation, or of the Bureau. It was a decision of the Assembly to establish an ad hoc committee and ask you, as representatives of your countries, to propose changes to the rules. The report is not a conspiracy; it is a compendium of your proposals. I, personally, have nothing against bigger or smaller numbers of members; I put in the report the numbers... 11/04/2019 | 10:13:47 I remind colleagues that for quite a number of part-sessions expectations have been high, certainly outside the Assembly, that the Rules of Procedure would be changed to make the procedure clearer in some respects. The report by the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs contains simple proposals to amend those provisions in the Rules of Procedure that need to be clarified, supplemented or reviewed in order that they better correspond to parliamentary practice... 10/04/2019 | 18:47:02 It is a pity that I did not participate in the debate about hate speech in sport, but I will use some sporting terminology now. I am a football fan. When we play football we like to follow the rules because they are simple and acceptable to us; I am even writing a book about how to introduce football rules into politics. What has happened here? One player did not follow the rules and we showed them the yellow card – a totally legitimate punishment. There is nothing really wrong with receiving... 08/04/2019 | 12:14:34 I will focus mostly on elections, and not only in the Republic of Moldova, where I participated and I am the rapporteur, but generally in terms of what we are doing, and how we are observing elections and the conclusions we need to draw from that. Some countries, including the Republic of Moldova, are trying to implement a new system; they are looking for a better system for organising elections. We can change systems, but experience shows that changing the system does not necessarily change... 24/01/2019 | 11:05:19 I shall speak about this topic from a different point of view. Many people here and members of parliament are strongly against domestic violence. Over many years I have seen here posters of wounded women and everybody signing papers that say “I am against domestic violence. No tolerance of domestic violence”. Let us imagine that at home one man is killing another man and wounding another. The police come and write their report: “There was a small escalation of tensions surrounding the... 22/01/2019 | 17:21:42 I congratulate the rapporteur. We are talking about sanctions, so I ask myself whether they are working and whether they are really effective. My answer is yes, because when we implemented the Magnitsky list in my country of Lithuania, I as a member of parliament received a message – a letter – from the Russian Federation stating that I am a persona non grata in the Russian Federation. That means that it reacted and that sanctions are painful for it, so sanctions are working. I do not need to...