26/04/2022 | 19:06:08 Dear Mister President, congratulations on your appointment to the post. [delivered in German] Dear colleagues, On behalf of Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), I would like to express our dismay at the life sentence handed down to Mr Kavala by a Turkish court. The European Court of Human Rights issued a final judgment in 2019 demanding "his immediate release". The Court's judgments are binding on all member States of the Council of Europe. By taking a decision that goes... 15/03/2022 | 11:46:42 Thank you, Madam President. Ladies and Gentlemen, 7 May 1992 was a day of light: Russia applied to join the Council of Europe. Four years later, our Assembly adopted an opinion recommending Russia's membership. It did so on the basis of a report by a member, Ernst Mühlemann, representing Switzerland, which recalled the progress made and the commitments undertaken. The opinion stated that Russia, and I quote, "intends to settle international and internal disputes by peaceful means (an... 27/01/2022 | 11:39:48 Thank you, Mister President. The Commission attaches great importance to this report. Thanks the rapporteur Mr André GATTOLIN for the work that has been done. Allow me to tell you, on a personal note, that visiting the Park of Memory in Buenos Aires was one of the strongest memories of my life. When you are invited to throw flowers in the Río de la Plata, where people disappeared, you realise the terrible weight that such a situation can have on the families, on the loved ones and on the... 26/01/2022 | 19:12:44 Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. On behalf of the Committee, I would also like to thank the rapporteur, Mr Jacques MAIRE, as most of you have said, for the quality of the report and also for the commitment that was put into drawing it up. The Committee regrets the lack of cooperation of the Russian Federation in the preparation of this report, not only with our Assembly, which is its obligation, but also with the United Nations, with the International Chemical Weapons Organization and also... 25/01/2022 | 16:18:36 Thank you, Mister President. Madam Secretary General, A few months ago, the Council of Europe launched a campaign which could have given the impression that our Organisation was promoting the wearing of the hijab. It was clumsy and it was regrettable for the messages that our Organisation usually carries since it could have caused misunderstandings. You have announced, Madam Secretary General, reorganisation measures following this incident. What is the status of the implementation of these... 25/01/2022 | 09:34:35 Thank you dear President. Allow me to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your election, and I do so in French with great pleasure. Mr President, dear colleagues, One does not choose to belong to a sexual minority: it is how one is born. As far as I am concerned, I was born this way. Nature made me this way. God made me this way. Personally, I struggled for a long time with this situation. It was hard for me to admit it when I was young but, you know, nature was stronger and I came... 24/01/2022 | 19:43:59 Thank you, Madam President of the session. This subject, this proposal, this Pact, basically gives a global vision, and the report rightly points this out, of migration management. It is important to do so. It is also important, as mentioned in the report and as we insist that the European Union should do more to take into account the respect of human rights at all levels of this report. My country, Switzerland, is not a member of the European Union, but it happens to participate in the... 28/09/2021 | 18:36:45 Yes, thank you, Mister President. I said this in the introductory debate on behalf of the ALDE Group: we are in fact opposed to amendments that make the rules too complex and that thereby make the functioning of our House complicated. Rules are always being added to rules, and it becomes, in essence, complicated to manage. We believe that we need a simple rule in this area. This is already a welcome and relatively binding objective set out in the text proposed by the rapporteur in the... 28/09/2021 | 17:37:59 Thank you, Mr President. The ALDE Group supports the aim of this draft resolution and thanks the rapporteur, Ms Nicole TRISSE, for the excellent work and also for the dialogue sought with the political groups throughout the process. I am sure that our parliaments and assemblies, as well as all elected political authorities, must strive for good gender representation. And yes, there must be a clear political will to achieve this and proactive measures. However, the ALDE Group highlights the... 28/09/2021 | 16:57:21 Thank you, Minister, for being here and for the dialogue we can have with you. We do not always agree with you, and sometimes it is challenging, but we talk to each other - and we talk to each other live - and I believe that this is an excellent thing. I do not agree - I listened carefully - with several of the things you said, including on migration: I do not believe that it is a danger, I think that it is a phenomenon that is as old as is humanity, which must obviously be supervised by the...