Role and mission of the Parliamentary Assembly: main challenges for the future
- Doc. 14867
- 10/04/2019
- Download en html, en version pdf
- Committee
- Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs
- Session
- 2019 - Second part-session
Committee Opinion
Conclusions of the committee
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1. The Committee on Rules of Procedure,
Immunities and Institutional Affairs thanks the rapporteur of the Committee
of Political Affairs and Democracy, Mr Tiny Kox (Netherlands, UEL),
for his report and supports the proposed draft resolution and draft
recommendation.
2. Throughout the years the Parliamentary Assembly has developed
a more active political role and has become, in addition to its
statutory duties, an indispensable actor in maintaining the Council
of Europe’s conventional system, upholding the European system of
protection of human rights, observing elections and others. The
increase in the Assembly’s political relevance was progressive and
was accompanied by regular reforms aiming to achieve coherence between
the Assembly’s political weight, on the one side, and its powers and
its working methods, on the other. In particular, Recommendation 1763 (2006) on the institutional balance at the Council of Europe
was set to provide a more active Assembly oversight into budgetary
matters and a closer association with the Committee of Minister’s
decision-making. Resolution
1822 (2011) on reform of the Parliamentary Assembly and subsequent
implementation resolutions extensively modified the Assembly’s working
methods by, in particular, reducing the number of committees and
refocusing the committee’s terms of reference.
3. The work of the Ad hoc Committee on the role and mission of
the Parliamentary Assembly was an ever-bigger consultation exercise
which involved national delegations, political groups and individual parliamentarians
and resulted in a series of proposals, part of which have been converted
into practical actions specified in the current draft resolution
and draft recommendation. The committee welcomes, in particular,
the definition of the role of the Assembly, the priority setting
guidance for the Assembly’s work programme, the proposals related
to an enhanced co-operation with national parliaments as well as
to concrete steps to achieving greater interaction with the European
Union, the United Nations and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD).
4. The committee welcomes the proposal to step up the political
dialogue between the Assembly and the Committee of Ministers. It
recalls on this occasion that the proposals aiming at strengthening
the dialogue at regular intervals by the Assembly – for instance,
in Resolution 1880 (2012) and Recommendation
1999 (2012) on the follow-up by the Committee of Ministers to the
work of the Assembly” and Recommendation
2114 (2014) “Defending the acquis of
the Council of Europe: preserving 65 years of successful intergovernmental
co-operation” – already called for relations with the Council of
Europe’s major partners to be reassessed.
5. In previous documents, the Assembly referred to the following
reasons, while making proposals for an enhanced institutional dialogue
between the two statutory bodies: need for democratic control over
the Organisation’s activities, achieving democratic legitimacy and
accountability within the Organisation and achieving effectiveness
and complementarity in both bodies’ work. The objective of developing
joint action to address cases when a member State violates its statutory
obligations or does not respect the fundamental principles and values
upheld by the Council of Europe takes the interaction between the
two organs to an even higher level.
6. This clarification is made necessary by the current confusion
among the main Council of Europe actors actively involved in assessing
member States’ statutory commitments and obligations, namely the
Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly and the Secretary
General of the Council of Europe, as to each other’s role and responsibility.
This lack of clarity was transformed into a real strategic disadvantage
when in 2016, the Parliament of the Russian Federation decided not
to submit its credentials – a situation which has occurred at the
opening of each session since.
7. That is why the committee fully agrees that the new envisaged
procedure could bring a new impetus to the current procedure framework
and provide a better tailored way of achieving the common objective
to appropriately and efficiently respond to a violation of the Statute
of the Council of Europe (ETS No. 1) by a member State. Not only
would the joint procedure bring more clarity as to the action by
each actor involved and make its action coherent with each actor’s
competences and responsibilities, it would also make an eventual decision
more legitimate in the eyes of the States concerned and create a
leverage effect enabling parliamentarians to use the existing national
mechanisms to call the governments for action.
8. The committee considers, however, that the wording of paragraph
15.3 of the draft resolution and of paragraph 5.4 of the draft recommendation
could be further strengthened in order to provide more guarantees as
to the effectiveness of a new joint procedure by setting a fixed
time-frame. Moreover, all institutional actors involved have to
act in good faith. The fact that the joint procedure foreseen would
be set up in addition, without prejudice to each organ’s existing
separate powers and responsibilities provides the necessary safeguard
if the procedure is circumvented or used in bad faith.
9. Needless to say, the Assembly has to be closely associated
with the preparation of the joint procedure foreseen. It should
be recalled that any modification of the Assembly’s Rules of Procedures
must be subject to prior consultation of the Rules Committee which,
according to Rule 70 of the Rules of Procedure, is the only committee
entitled to present to the Assembly reports on proposals regarding
any modification to the Rules of Procedure.
10. The Committee on Rules of Procedure would therefore like to
propose amendments aimed at better targeting the proposals contained
in the draft resolution and the draft recommendation.