30/01/2020 | 11:34:09 Thank you, Mr. Chairman Well, I can remember when the rapporteur for Azerbaijan sat here in the front row, and Mr Strasser, as rapporteur for political prisoners. It was scandalous that the rapporteur for Azerbaijan called on the House to vote against the report on political prisoners. It was outrageous and scandalous. I am rapporteur for the Monitoring Committee on Azerbaijan and I appeal to you to adopt this excellent report by our rapporteur today. I think this would be a very important... 30/01/2020 | 11:02:31 Thank you, Mr President, Thank you for the debate. Above all, however, I would like to thank the Social Committee, which unanimously adopted this resolution, and no amendment was tabled before the deadline. In this respect, I am somewhat saddened by a few dark speeches here; especially in the House of Human Rights, but I did say at the beginning of the debate: let us try and get away from the issue of parents and see only the best interests of the child. And, yes, it is like this: no child is... 30/01/2020 | 10:05:15 Thank you, Mr President, thank you very much. Thank you also to Dunja MIJATOVIĆ for giving us the honour of being with us for this really urgend topic. What is more urgent than helping children who die every day? Every day, we hear from the camps that children are dying, and I ask you now to try to follow this debate solely from a child's point of view. No child in the world is responsible for who their parents are; no child in the world is responsible for the environment in which they were... 28/01/2020 | 17:10:42 Thank you, Madam President. On behalf of the Group of Socialists, Greens and Democrats I would like to congratulate Lord George FOULKES very warmly and thank him for his work. I am allowed to follow him now as general rapporteur for press freedom, his shoe size, however, is very large. It is the year 2020: who would have thought that we would have to publish a report on how dangerous the lives of journalists are nowadays, that journalists are killed, that journalists are imprisoned, that... 28/01/2020 | 11:11:16 Thank you, Madam President. I would really like to thank the two rapporteurs, Ms Gustafsson and Mr Omtzigt, for this report, because it was four and a half years ago that I tabled the motion to do so. Now the baby is born, and the baby shows how very concerned we are throughout Europe about what is happening here in Poland. Max Frisch once wrote a book called "Biedermann und die Brandstifter", and a little bit seems to me that the arsonists are fully at work here, because what is in danger... 04/10/2019 | 12:08:44 Thank you, Madame President. Today I would like to address a topic that is particularly regrettable. The Assembly has decided to make a report on the Human Rights situation of the Tatar population in the Crimean peninsula. We have chosen a rapporteur. And as always in areas that we call the so-called gray areas, it needs the approval of both sides. In this case of Ukraine and the Russian Federation. To date, our rapporteur Mr Manuel TORNARE from Geneva has not been able to travel there... 04/10/2019 | 10:49:01 Thank you, Mr Chairman, It is a special honor for me today that the Culture Committee has chosen me to represent the Committee here today. Maybe because I am the rapporteur for Illegal Trafficking of Cultural Heritage, and have a lot to do with the issue of cultural heritage protection. At the very beginning I would like to thank Mr Raphaël COMTE for his work. We have met here throughout the years. Of course, it is always regrettable when someone who has done so much leaves. But leaving with... 03/10/2019 | 19:46:56 Thank you, Madam President, Yes, as a Moldovan insider, I can really congratulate the two rapporteurs on this special report. It underlines, once again, how important our monitoring system is, as it has just averted the danger of a tremendous institutional crisis. That has been averted here, by the Venice Commission, GRECO and so on. I just want to remind you that, not so long ago, when no attention at all went to Moldova, the institutional crisis fully penetrated all political institutions... 03/10/2019 | 18:41:11 Thank you very much, Madam President. It's a bit hard to answer after such a speech. I can tell the rapporteur that the request is not only well intentioned, it is also good and right. But, first of all, I want to express some words of deep concern. As rapporteur, I was often in the prefecture where today, these police officers were murdered. I would like to express my full sympathy to the French authorities and the French people. But I would also like to congratulate, first, the rapporteur... 03/10/2019 | 10:23:26 Thank you, Madam President. I too would like to congratulate the rapporteur on this report, and thank you with clear words. First and foremost, it's about human lives, and then it's about other issues. The Mediterranean, a cradle of humanity, cradle of culture, the cradle of the most important, great religions, is today a mass grave. Just today, a report from the UN has been published; and it will also be debated in Brussels. We cannot accept this mass grave, no matter in which part of the...