31/01/2025 | 11:38:31 Thank you so much, President. I didn't expect to speak first. I want to congratulate you on your re-election. You had a great performance as President of the Assembly in 2024. And on behalf of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, I wish you good luck and wisdom to chair this Assembly with strength, ambition and courage in order to deliver for the whole European continent in terms of our three main values. Now, there is a great and exciting year waiting for us. We'll be having... 29/01/2025 | 12:21:56 Dear President, Dear Secretary General, Dear Chief Rabbi Meir Lau, Allow me to start by quoting a bit of your remarkable memoir entitled "Out of the Depths", which I find very striking. "Today, looking back on the six years of that war, I realize that the worst thing I endured in the Holocaust was not the hunger, the cold, or the beatings; it was the humiliation. It was almost impossible to bear the helplessness of unjustified humiliation. Helplessness becomes linked with that dishonor... 27/01/2025 | 16:36:29 Dear President, dear colleagues, The report on the observation of the 26 October parliamentary elections, which I have the honour to present, was published last November. As such, it does not address the broader post-election political landscape but provides an assessment of the electoral process. Our delegation consisted of 31 PACE members, eminent representatives of the Venice Commission and our monitoring rapporteurs, Ms Edite ESTRELA and Mr Claude KERN. We co-operated with the delegations... 27/01/2025 | 12:42:15 Thank you, President, and congratulations on your re-election. Your All Holiness, on behalf of the Liberals in the House, welcome to this Assembly. I'm very happy to see you here. And on behalf of my group, I have three remarks and one question. First of all, I'm very happy that you have been condemning firmly the Russian aggression in Ukraine and that you had the courage to tell Patriarch Kirill to either confront the dictator or step down, but not legitimise the war in Ukraine by the image... 30/09/2024 | 16:08:33 I wish Mr Ian LIDDELL-GRAINGER was still in the room because I wanted to thank him dearly for the fantastic legacy he has at the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE). The legacy of Mr Ian LIDDELL-GRAINGER is being on the right side of history. We have been fighting together in June 2019 on not allowing the Russian delegation with full rights back to the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe as nothing happened when Russia annexed Crimea, and that is a fact. And the legacy... 30/09/2024 | 15:38:43 Thank you so much, Mister President of this session. I have prepared my speech as I've expected the Secretary General to be here. It's probably my fault, not being aware of the format, but it's very important to mention all the things that I've prepared in order to be clear on the expectancy of this Assembly for the new Secretary General, it's a very positive light. So, dear colleagues, the report I'm presenting you today covers our activities since the end of the June session. We still call... 30/09/2024 | 12:21:35 Dear Mister Vladimir KARA-MURZA, we are so happy to have you back. Welcome back. We are also very relieved to know that other friends of the Council of Europe and our group, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), including Oleg ORLOV and Ilya YASHIN, are free. On behalf of Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, and I think of all of us, I also want to praise Yevgenia's unstoppable, tireless commitment to fighting for her husband's freedom. You, Yevgenia, became a... 24/06/2024 | 17:03:07 Thank you, Madam President. Hearing someone talking about making a list of NGOs to be included in a transparent list sounds like a type of legislation adopted newly in a country that is identical to the one adopted in Russia in 2004. So, I'm a bit sceptical about that type of procedures, but beyond that, "dear Ingjerd, thank you very much for what you have done for us" [spoken in Norwegian]. Thank you so much for your rReport, dear Madam Ingjerd Schie SCHOU. It's been a great Report. I really... 24/06/2024 | 16:09:08 I also want to thank our colleague, Mr Alfred HEER for the Report on North Macedonia – well written, thank you for your job, Alfred. I, on behalf of the Liberals, welcome the decision of the Council of Europe to use the windfall profits from the Russian Central Bank's frozen assets to support Ukraine's recovery and military defence. From the very start of Russia's full-scale war of aggression, our Assembly has been demanding a comprehensive system of responsibility for the crimes committed by... 24/06/2024 | 12:14:07 Dear colleagues, Dear Speaker, We are not here to celebrate 75 years of the great values of this Organisation, because I think, if we are to celebrate something, it is our small achievements every day. This Organisation started when a wall, a big iron wall, was to divide Europe. Now we are not very far away from that, despite progress, because we have a new iron wall dividing the civilised, value-based, democratic and rules-based Europe, and the Russian aggression in Ukraine, which is a big...