04/10/2007 Session
Strasbourg, 04.10.2007 - “The Serbian chairmanship of the Council of Europe is a success not only for your country but also for our organisation,” President René van der Linden said in his welcome address to Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremic, Chairman of the organisation’s Committee of Ministers.
He hailed the “landmark decision” that was reached by the Committee of Ministers under Serbian chairmanship to proclaim the European Day against the Death Penalty. “It illustrates how our determination to defend our common values allows us go far beyond what is now possible at the level of the European Union,” he said.
He called for a genuine partnership beween PACE and the Committee of Ministers, based on complementarity, where each body contributes to the common cause by its own specificity and strengths. ”A basic precondition for the Assembly to develop in this direction is to have its own budget and a larger say in its human resources management,” Mr. van der Linden stressed.