28/01/2025 | 12:44:14 Thank you, Madam President. Madam rapporteur, dear Dora, Mister President of the European Court of Human Rights, Ladies and gentlemen, Eighty years after the liberation of the camps, which we commemorated yesterday here in Strasbourg at the Council of Europe, and after the end of the Second World War, the world seems set to plunge once again into the abyss. A world where the strongest impose their vision and interests on others, including through disproportionate military means. This is... 03/10/2024 | 17:47:56 That's it. We'll get to it, Mister Chairman. I'm sorry for the delay, but it's the law of the new technology we've just been awarded. Thank you, Mister Chairman. Madam rapporteur, Ladies and gentlemen, I wish to speak on the draft resolution on the human right to food as an elected representative of a territory that produces quality food from both land and sea, and because I sincerely believe that the issues of democracy and human rights that drive our institution include the first of these... 18/04/2024 | 11:48:59 Thank you, Mr President. Mr Rapporteur, Ladies and Gentlemen, I wish to speak on the draft resolution "Towards Council of Europe strategies for healthy seas and oceans to counter the climate crisis", both as a coastal elected representative who is particularly sensitive to this issue, and above all because I sincerely believe that the questions of democracy and human rights that drive our institution are particularly intertwined with environmental issues. I would like to take this opportunity... 17/04/2024 | 19:00:46 Thank you, Madam Chairman. Madam Chairman of the Committee, Dear Rapporteur, Our continent is founded on democracy and the rule of law, as we reiterate at every session. It is also based on freedom: the freedom of all people to lead their own lives and to enjoy all the rights guaranteed to them, whatever life they lead. The situation of LGBTI people is therefore at the heart of our concerns. It is the pride of our continent to continue to guarantee freedom of expression and assembly to LGBTI... 16/04/2024 | 19:27:24 Thank you, Mr Chairman. Ladies and Gentlemen, The adoption by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy on 27 March of the draft opinion recommending Kosovo's accession to the Council of Europe, presented by Ms Dora BAKOYANNIS, is logically followed by a discussion of the said opinion in the Plenary Assembly. If the opinion is also adopted, the final decision will be taken by the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers, which will meet... 16/04/2024 | 17:06:09 Thank you, Mr Chairman. Ladies and Gentlemen, The report we are considering today, the report by Mr Lulzim BASHA, is of the utmost importance, as the Assembly must remain focused on the issue of Russia's accountability for the reprehensible, destructive and criminal acts, contrary to all our values, that it has been committing in Ukraine since 2014. The creation of the Register of Damage Caused by the Russian Federation's Aggression against Ukraine is a first step in this direction. The... 15/04/2024 | 16:26:27 Thank you, Mr Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, Listen, I'll be very brief on this point: you've all expressed what I think is the unanimous position of the Council of Europe on these two reports. I would particularly like to congratulate Mrs Elvira KOVÁCS and Mrs Isabel MEIRELLES, who no longer sits in our noble Assembly: they have both worked, in the end, on what constitutes the beating heart of democracy, i.e. how we bring to life in our reciprocal parliaments our oppositions with the... 25/01/2024 | 17:38:55 Thank you, Mr Chairman. I would like to speak on behalf of the Committee as we bring to a close this instructive debate on a democratic future for Belarus. I would like to express my deepest gratitude for the exchanges shared today: our commitment to a democratic future for the people of Belarus has been clear, unwavering and continuous. I warmly thank Ms. Sviatlana TSIKHANOUSKAYA for her renewed presence among us today, and I salute her work, that of the democratic forces of Belarus, as well... 25/01/2024 | 16:16:42 Thank you, Mister Chairman. It was pronounced correctly. Madam Secretary General, Following the ethnic cleansing that took place in Nagorno-Karabakh at the end of last year, more than 100 000 people were forced to leave their homes and take refuge outside the Azerbaijan border. Most of them are now in Armenian territory. I was able to see for myself the state of material and psychological distress in which they find themselves during a visit I made there last December. However, the worst... 24/01/2024 | 15:33:36 Thank you, Mister Chairman. Mister General Secretary, Ladies and gentlemen, Dear colleagues, It falls to me today, in my capacity as Chairman of the Political Affairs and Democracy Committee, to present to you the report prepared by our former colleague Mr George KATROUGALOS, who is no longer a member of this Assembly, on the activities of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Our debate today is of an institutional nature. Relations between our two organisations date...