29/01/2020 | 18:34:02 Mr Speaker, Dear Andreas NICK, I want to begin by greeting you, in the place that you take here today, as far as I know, for the first time. Good luck. When I saw Mr Piotr TOLSTOY here somewhere, I knew that he has a very good command of the French language. I will therefore speak in French. The European People's Party shares the view of many members of our Assembly that having the Russian delegation in their midst would allow the Assembly to exercise monitoring procedures that have been... 29/01/2020 | 16:50:24 Let me switch to English because now I'm going to speak about different things. I do not share the uncritical enthusiasm towards this mechanism of Mr Tiny KOX. The road that has led us to this report, this proposal, was very long and painful. The new procedure currently on the table is a fruit of the biggest crisis that this Assembly has gone through in its 70 years of history. Was that proposal somehow a screen to hide behind, or the price to get the majority and to give to that majority the... 28/01/2020 | 11:27:54 Thank you, Madam President. First of all, I must thank the rapporteur and somebody — who is no longer with us — who has done a great deal of work, a member from Luxembourg, Mr Cruchten, who has worked a great deal on this report. When I hear the representative of the Conservatives say "It is Poland that is being accused here", that's not true. It is the government that maintains an anti-democratic, anti-European policy and destroys the rule of law, nullifying the separation of powers. When I... 03/10/2019 | 12:07:16 Seventy years ago, in a destroyed-by-a-terrible war Europe, the great minds built a new order based on peace, democracy, and liberal economies. From today's perspective, the project implemented by 47 countries in Europe can be assessed as an avalanche of success. High standards of human rights pushed by the Council from the beginning have become a model for subsequent countries joining it. In the 90s, for all countries that were suffering under the occupation of the Soviet Union, after years... 02/10/2019 | 12:10:40 Madame Secretary General, Dear Marija, You probably know how pleased I am with your success, as an EPP President for our political family. It is a huge success to see you here, you deserved this success, not because you are a woman but because you are a national of Central Europe. You have won against very good candidates thanks to your merits, thanks to your work, thanks to your sanitation plan of our institution. I will not talk about values, without sharing the values of the majority of us... 02/10/2019 | 10:21:02 Thank you, Chair. Dear colleagues, On behalf of the EPP, I would like to thank Lord Richard BALFE for an excellent report and, in my opinion, this carefully drafted report properly outlines challenges concerning the operation of ombudsmen institutions in Europe. I would like to support the adoption of the recommendation and the resolution included in the report, and the endorsement of the Venice Commission's principles on the protection and promotion of the ombudsman institution. I would like... 24/06/2019 | 16:21:53 Madame President. Dear colleagues. The so-called Ms Petra De SUTTER report divided our assembly and I will not hide that in EPP Group we have also different opinions presented. Any decision for "yes" or "no" has some advantages and weaknesses. From one side, it is obvious that for the citizens of any country, even not - or maybe mostly not - democratic ones, it is a great chance to have the possibility to be covered by Council of Europe's institutions. Having access to the Commissioner of... 11/04/2019 | 10:25:13 In the last few months, we have all worked hard to preserve – indeed, to save – our Assembly, which is the cradle of our values: democracy; human rights; and, simply put, freedom. Many of you considered it very dangerous to vote yesterday on Mr Tiny KOX's report, simply because you thought that rules should not be changed in the middle of the year, and yet the report was adopted. Why? It was because a majority felt that it offers solutions that will safeguard this Assembly and its work. In... 25/01/2019 | 10:15:41 I thank Ms Tineke STRIK for her report. What we are dealing with did not happen overnight. In fact, withdrawal of nationality was used by the communists to drive their opponents out of the country. We could give several examples of how it can serve a very “useful” purpose in destroying the opposition in a country. Of course, we are dealing with a huge amount of terrorist-related violence and this can sometimes cause the use of more and more radical means to combat it. The real danger we face... 24/01/2019 | 15:45:28 I congratulate those who have taken the initiative with this report. I thank our rapporteurs and the Committee for having done the work so quickly. As a Pole, it is difficult to talk about Turkey with anything other than a certain affection and long-standing ties of friendship. Turkey was the only country that, when my country was about to be occupied, stood up before it was erased from the map. That being said, I speak today as a representative not of my country but of my party, the Group of...