26/01/2023 | 17:59:31 Thank you, Madam President. First of all, I would like to thank all the colleagues who have spoken and expressed their appreciation for the activity of the Commission and for all the activity of our rapporteurs and our secretariat. I agree with many of the things that have been said, so I will not repeat them. I just want to make a few remarks. First point: I absolutely agree with my colleague Mr Hişyar ÖZSOY. We are today in a phase in which democracies are endangered by autocratic... 26/01/2023 | 17:02:02 Thank you, Madam Chair. You have received the Monitoring Committee's activity report for 2022. During this year, we have monitored 11 countries that have been subject to a monitoring procedure. These are all Central and Eastern European countries. Three countries have been subject to a post-monitoring procedure - also Central and Eastern European countries - and six countries to a periodic monitoring procedure. Three of these six countries have already completed the procedure and the other... 25/01/2023 | 15:51:29 Thank you, Madam President. The conflict between Kosovo and Serbia is a conflict that concerns not only the two countries, the two peoples, but, let us be clear, the entire region and it weakens the stability of the Western Balkans. We must not forget that, in the Balkans, there are already other crisis points: Montenegro has been experiencing a very serious institutional political crisis for two years; in Northern Macedonia, there is a very intense internal political debate; and Bosnia is... 12/10/2022 | 12:39:56 Thank you, Mister President. I think we really have to thank Mr Boriss CILEVIČS and Mr John HOWELL for the work they have done over the last few years, with great attention to all aspects of the situation in Türkiye. As the rapporteurs have already said, we are not a court but a political institution. Its purpose is to monitor the functioning of democracy, respect for rights and to ensure that all member countries of this Council fully comply with this duty to respect rights and democracy... 11/10/2022 | 10:24:27 Thank you Mr President. I, of course, thank my colleague Mr George PAPANDREOU and agree with his report on behalf of the Socialist Group. We will support it. I would like to start with this consideration. We are facing an atrocious war that we are all following with anguish, in Ukraine, and that war, however, brings us to other wars that have ravaged the continent since the end of World War II. I think of the wars in the Caucasus and I think of the war in the Balkans. What do these wars tell... 28/04/2022 | 10:43:05 Thank you, Minister. I would also like to thank you for the vigorous, strong and authoritative way in which you have led the Italian Presidency. My question obviously still concerns the Ukrainian affair. That is, we are in a second phase of the military offensive by Russia, which after having withdrawn from the Donbass, sets itself the objective of conquering the Donbass and the Ukrainian Black Sea coast. We are faced with a very strong response from the coalition of democratic countries on... 25/04/2022 | 17:57:26 I apologize, I will take just a few seconds, because I do not believe that much progress will be made if in every session of our Parliamentary Assembly we have such a debate, where representatives of Armenia stand up and reproach and recriminate against Azerbaijan and vice versa, representatives of Azerbaijan do the same. This is not a step forward. We will continue in this mutual recrimination. So I believe that the Council of Europe, which is a forum where dialogue, reconciliation and... 15/03/2022 | 10:43:32 Hello, thank you, can you hear me, yes? Thank you, President. I apologize if I'm going online. Today our Parliament is voting on the Ukraine aid decree, so I have to be here to vote. I will also go online to vote on our resolution. I believe that the decision we are making is an absolutely necessary and inevitable decision. There is no justification for what Putin has done. Russia has received no threat from Ukraine, Europe, the United States, or NATO. Russia is tearing up all the agreements... 28/01/2022 | 11:36:45 I had a connection problem. First of all, I want to thank the rapporteur because he has done a great job, but especially because he has been the Chairperson of the Monitoring Committee for the last years. He has led the Committee very efficiently. I am the new Chairperson and as the new Chairperson I am really happy to succeed my colleague and I congratulate him for the work he has done. This report is a very precise report that summarises the work that we have done with the monitoring of the... 27/01/2022 | 18:14:27 Thank you very much, Of course I also thank the two rapporteurs, who have really done an extraordinary job. The Armenian situation is a very complex one that has had, in recent years, some very turbulent events, both in domestic politics and with with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. The most recent developments of the situation in Armenia are more comforting in the sense that a number of democratic reforms are being conducted and they are moving towards political stabilisation; going in the...