27/01/2020 | 12:29:58 Is that a regular vote that we need, a normal majority? We have a request from Mr Piotr TOLSTOY, although it will be practically very difficult, to move the current credentials debate from Thursday to Wednesday. We'll put it to the vote. If it carries a majority, then we will probably need to move some other reports. As I am informed, it will probably mean that the reported cases of political prisoners in Azerbaijan will move to Thursday or even later. We will now proceed to vote on the... 27/01/2020 | 12:24:02 Thank you. I inform you that the Bureau of the Assembly is against. We shall now vote on the request. The vote is open. Okay. The vote is almost closed. I mean, it's going up and down here. It's very strange. Okay, the vote is closed. The request for an urgent procedure has failed to achieve the required two-thirds majority. Then we go to the current debates. No, we have others. What is this? I'm fairly new dear Colleagues so abide me a little bit to get acquainted with this. Okay, now we... 27/01/2020 | 12:20:26 Thank you Mr Frank SCHWABE. The Bureau of the Assembly as I said is against. We shall now vote on the request for an urgent procedure as asked by Mr Ian LIDDELL-GRAINGER. The decision requires a two-thirds majority. Those who are in favour of holding this urgent debate should vote yes. Those who are against holding such a debate should vote no. Okay? The vote is open now. Please vote. I mean the number here is going down. It's a very special thing here. Okay? The vote is closed. Maybe display... 27/01/2020 | 12:14:24 Well, we will have a vote on one candidate vice-chairman, the vote will take place in the afternoon by secret ballot. Okay, are there any other challenges or any other requests for the vote? No. In that case, I declare the other candidates elected as Vice-President of the Assembly. In accordance with Rule 16 of the Rules of Procedure, they will take precedence by age. Then we have the appointment of Committees. The next item on the Agenda is the appointment of members of Committees. The... 27/01/2020 | 12:13:16 Thank you Ms Mariia MEZENTSEVA. I do apologise with all the names. I will need a little bit of time to pronounce them well. As requested, the vote on respect of the candidature of Mr Piotr TOLSTOY as a vice-President, I need to know if this request is carried. We need at least 20 Members to support it. Can I see the 20 Members that support it? So you have to stand up in order for the count to be possible. So the request is valid under Rule 16. There will therefore be a secret ballot in... 27/01/2020 | 12:02:05 I hope that this will be translated in the right way. So it's not about sheep, it's about getting back to business. Ladies and gentlemen, Madam Secretary General, ladies and gentlemen Ambassadors, president of the Committee of Ministers of Georgian Ambassador, Mr Secretary General of the Assembly, and all 85 people who are in the team of the Assembly, my fellow Members in Parliament. They say it takes two to tango, Madam Secretary General, I say: it takes three to dance. Why? Because in the... 27/01/2020 | 11:59:48 Ladies and gentlemen, Members of Parliament, I would really like to thank you all from the bottom of my heart, for trusting in me, for honouring me and also for issuing me a challenge. I hope I'm up to the task of earning your trust. In any case, I'll do everything I can, with the whole team, to deserve it. You do me great honor. Let me explain why: I am Belgian, as many of you know. My credentials have not been challenged, which is a good start! It should however be noted that the very first... 03/10/2019 | 12:16:07 But there is more. I also started to think about Europe. What is Europe? We could go back into history and say where does the word come from? But basically it comes from Arabic, I don't know if you know that. It's an Assyrian word, which basically means that's the place where the sun goes down. We translated that into the West. Now that depends on where you stand, because if you're standing in the Philippines, Strasbourg is not exactly the West, I mean you have to pass by many countries... 03/10/2019 | 12:15:20 You know, this morning I had a nice speech. But, Madam President, Madam Secretary General, I began to think about what the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is in fact. There are three keywords in there. There is a word that is "assembly": it means to be together, all together, doing something together. There is also the word "parliament". There, it's easy in French, the word "parler" means "to speak", "dialogue". On the other hand, when I put it in English, it becomes quite... 02/10/2019 | 12:15:13 Madame Secretary General, You just told us that you wanted to hear from the Assembly what we wanted. I'm inclined to say: "Do you have a minute?" Well, that's exactly what we've got, one minute. It's not enough, but still, a few elements: One, I totally agree with the fact that we should focus. We should focus on what? We should focus on empowering people, empowering governments, empowering countries to comply fully with the values that we stand for and this is not the case today. So that...