26/01/2021 | 18:24:02 Thank you, Mr President. First of all, on behalf of the ALDE delegation, I would like to thank Mr Wojciech SAWICKI, our Secretary General, who has, over the last ten years and beyond, offered support, a moral reference, in respecting the rules that has been absolutely essential during the turbulent times we have gone through and who has always been with us – and at least with me since I became Group President. Absolute, I would say, unfailing support, at all times, to carry out my mandate... 25/01/2021 | 16:28:05 Thank you, Mr President, and congratulations on your brilliant and indisputable election. A quick question, briefly, on the prospect of the Hungarian Presidency, which begins just after the German Presidency, beginning approximately from 21 May. Have you had any dialogues? Have you had exchanges to prepare for it, and in what state of mind is it being prepared? Secondly, I agree with my colleague Mr Aleksander POCIEJ on the situation of the Armenian prisoners of war. There have been quite a... 20/11/2020 | 16:37:02 Thank you, Mr Speaker. Mrs Petra STIENEN of course has my full support for this excellent and important report. I want to say that I myself, as a former diplomat, when I returned to the Quai d'Orsay in the early 1990s, there were women colleagues but very few women ambassadors, perhaps one or two at the time. Today, there are 40% of them in French Foreign Affairs and this has fundamentally changed the face of our diplomacy. What I can tell you is that, when we send, for example, a mission of... 20/11/2020 | 11:56:44 Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think that this debate is very important. It concludes months and months of work, both on the side of the Parliamentary Assembly and on the side of the Council of Ministers. It is very important to see that, at a time when the pandemic crisis is putting all the institutions under a bit of general anaesthesia, the Council of Europe is responding, and this statement by the Committee is really quite powerful testimony to that. I would first like to draw your attention to... 20/11/2020 | 10:03:36 Yes, thank you, Mr President. Minister, first of all, bravo and thank you for your commitment. You know that the Council of Europe needs more than ever a dynamic and involved presidency of the Council of Ministers, because this period is both a context of weakening of our meetings and our collective dynamic, but also a context of increasing risk. We were very concerned about what happened with all the efforts of the excellent Greek presidency when the last Athens Declaration was adopted. We... 30/01/2020 | 18:43:16 Thank you, Mr President, I thank our colleague Sir Roger GALE for the quality and importance of his work and the mission that he has accomplished at the head of this Monitoring Committee. Indeed, we can see from this comprehensive report that it is an excellent overview of the committee's activities over the past year. I do not want to go into detail, country by country, but I would like to emphasise in this debate that this monitoring procedure is a crucial working instrument for the... 28/01/2020 | 10:59:05 Thank you. I would first like to thank our two rapporteurs, Ms Azadeh ROJHAN GUSTAFSSON and Mr Pieter OMTZIGT, for their work on democratic institutions. It is a report that is excellent, remarkable and uncompromising. It gives, of course, an informed view of the reality of the reforms, but it goes much further, since it actually details what is most important: the political project behind these reforms. This is a political project that refers to a regression in terms of democracy and... 27/01/2020 | 12:55:54 Thank you, Mr. President. All my best wishes for your term that you have before you and which, at the same time, faces a difficult context but, at the same time, with new sources of repositioning for the Assembly and the Council of Europe, as you said, in connection with the Secretary General and the Council of Ministers. I would also like to pay tribute to the impressive work done by our President, Mrs Liliane MAURY PASQUIER. We were together a few weeks ago in a sled drawn by Arctic... 02/10/2019 | 19:48:13 Thank you, Madam President. Thank you first, of course, to our two rapporteurs, Ms Lise CHRISTOFFERSEN and Mr POCIEJ for their work in monitoring this demanding dialogue. Of course, like everyone else, we welcome the 17 June Prespa Agreement. Mr Zaev showed on the occasion of this very painful decision that he is a true statesman. I was myself in North Macedonia on 27 January 2019, the very same day that the Greek Parliament ratified the agreement. And I observed on this occasion that beyond... 01/10/2019 | 11:19:01 Thank you, Madam President, I would first like to congratulate my colleague, Sylvain WASERMAN, for his rich, interesting and very ambitious report for our Assembly. Naturally, I fully support his proposals, which in particular call on the Committee of Ministers to launch the negotiation of a Convention for the protection of whistle-blowers. I myself had the opportunity to get involved in this situation, especially with whistle-blowers from the financial sector, as rapporteur in 2019, on the...