28/09/2021 | 10:06:08 Good morning to all of you. The sitting is open. This morning the Agenda calls for the election of three judges to the European Court of Human Rights in respect of the Czech Republic, the Republic of Moldova and the Russian Federation. The list of candidates and biographical notices are to be found in Documents 15358, 15350, 15304 and 15375, Addendum 2. The voting for each election will take place by individual electronic secret ballot voting between 10.00 a.m. and 3.00 p.m. today. Each... 27/09/2021 | 12:28:45 Dear colleagues, honourable guests, Mr President of the Congress, welcome, [welcomes the two nominees in French] I hereby declare open the Award Ceremony of the Václav Havel Human Rights Prize. Before I invite all of you to watch a short video on the prize, I would like to welcome the representatives of our three shortlisted candidates, by saying a brief word on why this occasion goes to the very heart of what the Council of Europe represents. Protecting and upholding human rights is our core... 27/09/2021 | 12:07:10 Thank you, Madame. Do you request a vote on the issue? I don't suppose so. I don't see you're requesting it. Therefore the proposition of the Bureau is followed and the current affairs debate will not be held. Thank you. The next item of business is the adoption of the agenda for the fourth part of the 2021 ordinary session. The draft agenda submitted for the Assembly's approval was drawn up by the Bureau on 6 September 2021, and updated on Friday. It is proposed that the debates under... 27/09/2021 | 12:03:55 Those who vote yes, say "yes" to the debate, those who vote no, say "no" to the debate. Thank you for the clarification. The vote is open. The vote is closed. Results please. Thank you very much. It is a clear two-thirds majority, so the urgent affairs debate will be held. The timing of the three approved upon urgent procedure debates will be considered at the adoption on the agenda after we have considered the request for a current affairs debate. We've got two. We come now to the request... 27/09/2021 | 11:47:14 Voilà! Problem settled. May I ask you to be seated? Dear colleagues, I just wanted to share a few thoughts with you at the beginning of this important session and, as a matter of fact, when I drove back home yesterday after the jury of the Václav Havel prize, the emblematic person that Václav Havel is and what he represents, I couldn't get this very well-known sentence from Hamlet out of my head. You all know that, I mean "to be or not to be, that is the question", but the interesting part is... 27/09/2021 | 11:39:39 Because if I go from French to English, maybe to Dutch or to Spanish, or what have you, it will make life quite difficult for the translators. Dear colleagues, I would like to start by paying tribute to Ms Marie-Louise BEMELMANS-VIDEC from the Netherlands and Mr Martin HEBNER from Germany, both active members of the Parliamentary Assembly who served with conviction and commitment the courses and values of the Council of Europe and our Assembly. A colleague, Marie-Louise was also a long... 27/09/2021 | 11:37:59 Dear colleagues, I declare open the fourth part of the 2021 Ordinary Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. I welcome everyone here and online. We have a good session ahead of us. I have asked our Secretary General, Ms Despina CHATZIVASSILIOU-TSOVILIS, to tell me how many of our colleagues are present. When we see that we were the first to get out of the COVID swamp, a little bit, we have gone from 80 to more than 100, to 150 in our hybrid sessions. If I have... 24/06/2021 | 18:30:26 Thank you, Mister Vice-President, Mister MEREZHKO. It is a habit that then I return briefly to the Assembly to close the sitting. I would wish to thank all of you still present, including obviously the Vice-President for doing a fine job and also for all the people who are still with us, massively as usual, Secretary General. Anyway, we just concluded, I think, a quite successful week. To be quite honest we had a lot of high-level people addressing the Assembly, and I would just like to refer... 24/06/2021 | 17:28:28 But, before doing so, I would like to share with you - let me stand up to do so - an important moment in the career of a person who has contributed in the shadows, as they say, to the work of the Council of Europe effectively since - I hardly dare say it - July 17th 1979. So quite a while! I would like to thank Madame Claire DUNCOMBE - I hope I am pronouncing your name correctly? Dear colleagues, Madame Claire DUNCOMBE (applause) who is a sound engineer in the service of ITEM, I am told... 24/06/2021 | 17:26:04 Thank you, Madam Chair. So now we come to the draft resolution. Normally, Mister Momodou Malcolm JALLOW, you should get nervous now. You never know what a vote is going to do in a hemicycle. Just teasing a little bit, but I think I'm allowed to do so. Dear colleagues, draft resolution. The Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination has presented a draft resolution which is Document 15306 to which three amendments have been tabled. I understand that the Chairperson of the Committee on...