24/01/2011 Session
24.01.2011 – The credentials of the delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) from Montenegro, San Marino and Serbia were challenged on the opening day of the Assembly’s plenary session in Strasbourg on the grounds that they do not contain at least one Representative who is a member of “the under-represented sex”, as required by the Rules.
Making the challenge, José Mendes Bota (Portugal, EPP/CD), Chair of the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men, pointed out that national delegations should include women members at least in the same percentage as in their parliaments and – following a change in the rules in November 2010 – at a very minimum, at least one woman “appointed as a Representative”.
The Assembly’s Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs will now consider the matter, and the Assembly will reach a final decision later in the week. The three delegations may take their seats provisionally in the Assembly until then, with voting and speaking rights.
The 318-member Assembly, which meets four times a year in plenary session, brings together delegations from the national parliaments of all 47 Council of Europe member states.