22/11/2012 Standing Committee
Strasbourg, 22.11.2012 – Ensuring that the best interests of the child are upheld in the context of intercountry adoption will be one of the central themes of the meeting of the Standing Committee (*) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to be held in Andorra la Vella on Friday 30 November 2012, on the occasion of the transfer of the Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers to Andorra.
The parliamentarians will base their discussions on the report by Marlene Rupprecht (Germany, SOC) and adopt a resolution on the subject. The other themes for debate will be Human rights and family courts and NGOs’ role in combating intolerance, racism and xenophobia.
The Standing Committee will also consider the observation of the recent parliamentary elections in Georgia, Montenegro and Ukraine. Furthermore, a current affairs debate has been requested by the Group of the European People's Party (EPP/CD) on “The case of Malala Yousafzai and the right to education for young women” (this Pakistani teenager, who has been fighting for women’s education rights, was the victim of an assassination attempt by the Taliban on 9 October 2012 in Pakistan; she survived the attack and is now in hospital in the United Kingdom).
After the opening of the meeting by the PACE President, Jean-Claude Mignon, the Speaker of the Andorran Parliament, Vicenç Mateu Zamora, will address the participants. The parliamentarians will then hold an exchange of views with the Andorran Minister for Foreign Affairs, Gilbert Saboya Sunyé, who took the Chair of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe on 9 November 2012 for a six-month term. The discussions should concern Andorra’s priorities for its chairmanship and other questions arising from the Assembly’s ongoing political dialogue with the Committee of Ministers.
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The Standing Committee meeting, which is open to the press, will take place on 30 November 2012 from 9 am to 1 pm at the Andorran Parliament (Consell General), Hemicycle (Level -1), Carrer de la Vall, 28, Andorra la Vella.
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(*) The Standing Committee, which acts on the Assembly’s behalf between plenary sessions, is made up of the President and Vice-Presidents of the Assembly, the chairpersons of political groups, the chairpersons of national delegations and the committee chairpersons, totalling some 60 parliamentarians.