26/01/2026 | 15:48:28 Dear colleagues, welcome back. The sitting is open. I remind members that, in order to be registered for the sitting, you should insert your badge when you take your seat, and keep it inserted for at least 30 seconds. You should also insert your badge in order to speak or vote. To request the floor, please press the “request” button in front of you. I also remind the Assembly that members who have not submitted an annual declaration of interests are required to start any intervention with... 26/01/2026 | 14:08:27 So, we will have a vote. There was a proposition to change the order of the Agenda and to debate conversion practices earlier on the Agenda. I remind you that on a motion to alter the draft Agenda, the only members who can be heard are the mover of the motion, one speaker against and the spokesperson of each of the committees concerned. That means that that if the mover of the [off mic] no, she isn't here? [on mic] so that we just hear the pro and the con arguments and then we come to the... 26/01/2026 | 14:01:41 So, the next item on the Agenda is the election of Vice-Presidents of the Assembly. Eighteen nominations for Vice Presidents are listed in Document AS/Inf (2026) 01. If there is no request for a vote, they will be declared elected. I don't see any requests for that. So, we come to the next point, which is the appointment of committees. The candidatures for the general committees, including the Committee on Rules, Ethics and Immunities, the Monitoring Committee, have been published as... 26/01/2026 | 13:46:12 Thank you very much, Mr Emanuelis ZINGERIS. It is also nice to see you. Distinguished ambassadors, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues, First and foremost, thank you very much for your trust. Be assured I will carry it humbly and respectfully. Many of you have known me since 2018, when I first became a member of this Parliamentary Assembly. And what, maybe fewer of you may know, is my path that brought me here. I was born in a family belonging to the Czech minority in Vienna. For some years... 03/10/2025 | 11:20:43 Thank you very much. Politics is made by human beings, and human beings are social beings, and ideas are shaped by exchange, by interaction and sometimes by very hard debates, of course. For these ideas, visions, we need to come together. We need to travel freely, without unnecessary administrative burdens or any other restrictions, to get a visa or anything like that. What we need is resources and no excuses. Indeed, coming together here for a week is expensive, and it needs a lot of... 02/10/2025 | 19:00:09 Thank you. I think there is no other city in the world as known for good housing policy as my hometown, Vienna, where Ms Aurora FLORIDIA also took a ride to. And that has a long tradition. It started more than 100 years ago in the so-called Red Vienna and has its traces until today. About one third of all Viennese live in city-owned flats without any profit for the city. Another third live in subsidised housing owned by co-operatives, also non-profit. And one third live in private housing... 01/10/2025 | 18:49:39 Colleagues, With this report we contribute to one of the key goals set at the Reykjavík summit to find ways to co-operate with Russian and Belarusian human rights defenders, democratic forces, free media and independent civil society. Let me add, without putting them at additional risk. The decision we take today to establish a platform for exchange with Russian democratic forces is a very, very important step. It gives the representatives the opportunity to participate in our substantive... 01/10/2025 | 11:32:34 Thank you very much. Today, I do not want to speak about numbers. I want to speak but about a person, Iryna DANYLOVYCH. Iryna DANYLOVYCH is a daughter of Crimea, a trained medical professional, a trade union leader and a journalist. Her only "crime" was to speak the truth. For this, she was kidnapped by the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB), locked in a basement for ten days, tortured and threatened with death. Today, she is serving nearly seven years in a Russian... 29/09/2025 | 12:08:48 Thank you, Mr Theodoros ROUSOPOULOS. Dear colleagues, allow me to address you not only as speaker on behalf of my group, but also as the Chair of the Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights. You all know that originally on the agenda there was foreseen a voting on a judge in respect of Cyprus tomorrow, which disappeared from the agenda. I first want to explain why it was so. We heard in our September session the three candidates and then we had a debate and... 27/06/2025 | 10:04:38 Thank you very much, Theodoros. I want to speak about Belarus, because I think that, because of all the wars and all the severe problems we face in our own member countries, we often tend to forget about other regions in Europe, which are also very important. And we all welcomed, of course, the release of 14 prisoners recently, among them Siarhei TIKHANOVSKY, which is, of course, very good and a very good example. But we should also be aware that since the release of these 14 prisoners, 20...