20/4/2013

Opening address

by Mr Jean-Claude Mignon

President of the Parliamentary Assembly

Second part of the 2013 ordinary session

(22 – 26 April 2013)

(strasbourg, Monday 22 April 2013, 11.30 am)

Colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome to Strasbourg for this new part-session, an important and very rich one which will as usual centre on our values and their honouring on the continent of Europe. Since the last part-session, I have been very busy myself in the field, visiting member States where our action is particularly relevant and in demand. I have brought back from my visits a number of positive conclusions which I should like to share with you.

For example, I travelled to Serbia, where I applauded the substantial progress made in implementing its commitments and in moving along the path of European integration. I was also able to speak frankly, no holds barred, even in the Serbian Parliament, about the situation relating to Kosovo^*, which remains a sensitive issue. Parliamentary diplomacy holds out huge potential for encouraging dialogue between the parties, and, with this in mind, I hope that this Assembly will today ratify the arrangements for participation in our work by elected representatives from the Kosovo Assembly.

Similarly, I welcomed the opportunity to speak absolutely frankly in Ukraine about the most sensitive matters, particularly with the President of the Republic. I am delighted that this exchange was followed by a first positive development, the release of Mr Lutsenko. I hope that further positive developments will follow shortly, and I shall continue the dialogue started with the Ukrainian authorities in order to make progress in this direction.

When I travelled to Romania, I welcomed the acceptance by its political forces of “cohabitation”, and thus of normal democratic interaction. I am therefore both pleased that the political situation in Romania has stabilised and proud to know that our Assembly and the Venice Commission very much helped to achieve normalisation of the situation in the country. In this context, I am looking forward to the visit during this session of the Prime Minister of Romania, Mr Ponta, which will enable us to continue our dialogue.

Of course I must share with you my first impressions of my working visit to Russia, to St Petersburg and Moscow. I made this visit with two aims in mind:

In St Petersburg I wished to renew links with the Interparliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States, which has co-operated with the PACE since 1997. I addressed the Council of the IPA of the CIS, and I met Mrs Valentina Matvienko, Chair of the Federation Council of the Russian Parliament and also President of the IPA of the CIS, in order to discuss how to boost our co-operation. I also took the opportunity to meet the Speakers of the Parliaments of Kazakhstan and the Kyrgyz Republic. I also had informal contacts with the delegation of the Parliament of Belarus which took part in our joint conference with the IPA of the CIS. I think that there is now a need to start a dialogue, although I must say that progress along this road will be possible only if the authorities undertake to honour our values and standards.

In Moscow, where I was taking part in the European Conference of Ministers of Culture, I met Mr Narychkin, Speaker of the State Duma, in order to have a – frank and unambiguous – discussion with him about various aspects of our co-operation. We confirmed the key role that Russia plays within the Council of Europe and the progress that the country has made since it became a member of the Organisation. At the same time, I took care to point out that membership of the Council of Europe brought with it responsibilities, and particularly a duty to honour the obligations and commitments entered into and to implement the resolutions adopted by our Assembly. I believe that it is extremely important to emphasise that Mr Narychkin confirmed to me that he would be taking part in our October part-session, and I expect there to be a very interesting exchange of views with him.

I also need to share with you my concern about recent developments in Hungary. The latest constitutional amendments, adopted by the Hungarian Parliament in March, raise serious questions about their compatibility with the principles of the rule of law and the standards of the Council of Europe. Our Monitoring Committee will be considering during this session its opinion on the possible opening of a monitoring procedure in respect of Hungary. This debate should enable us, in co-operation with you, to define the most appropriate course to follow where this situation is concerned.

Ladies and gentlemen, friends,

During this session, we are to have a number of debates on some fundamental aspects of the application of our values and standards, namely the issues of violence against religious communities, children’s rights and the protection of children against sexual violence and discrimination, the situation of young people and their access to fundamental rights, and the situation of migrants and asylum seekers and the protection of their rights. In order to increase the impact of our action on all these subjects, we need to work closely with our partners from the European Union. I see a huge political advantage in this: it will enable us to defend our values across the whole continent of Europe, with a single methodology and with identical objectives.

As you know, I work hard for a closer relationship with the European Union, which is one of the two main priorities of my term of office. In this context, I follow very carefully what is happening in respect of the accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights, and when I travelled recently to Luxembourg I was able to discuss this subject with the President of the Court of Justice of the European Union. I welcome the finalisation of the accession instrument, and I now hope that the accession process will be able to be completed by our two institutions as soon as possible. That will be a major step towards the unification of our continent’s area of human rights protection!

I also welcome the fact that the institutions of the European Union now systematically refer to the Council of Europe’s standards and tools whenever failures to comply with our standards are found to have occurred. We now need to concentrate on joint activities, including when the countries concerned are members of the European Union. There is no point in “reinventing the wheel”, so to speak, and setting up parallel mechanisms and bodies. The Council of Europe can already offer a wide range of tools enabling the honouring of our values to be gauged and member States to be provided with support.

Ladies and gentlemen, colleagues,

As usual, we shall be welcoming to this session high-ranking officials from various European countries, I shall not list them during my address; their names appear on the draft agenda for the part-session. It is both an honour and a great opportunity to receive in our Chamber so many leading political personalities. I am relying on you to extend to them a warm and friendly welcome and to put to them a large number of interesting questions during our exchanges of views.

My friends,

As you know, I have started a discussion on how to breathe new life into our Human Rights Prize, so as to restore to this high distinction its full prestige and symbolic value. I am highly delighted that, with the very strong and unreserved support of the Czech Republic, and of the Václav Havel Library and the Charta 77 Foundation, we have been able to conclude an agreement for this prize to be known as the “Václav Havel Human Rights Prize”. Thus our prize has been symbolically linked with the name of one of the greatest human rights defenders that Europe has ever known. Consequently, I hope that the candidates, and, in particular, the winners this year (and in years to come!) will be worthy of this illustrious politician and Great European!

Thank you for your attention.

^* Throughout this text, all references to Kosovo, whether to the territory, institutions or population, shall be understood in full compliance with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244 and without prejudice to the status of Kosovo.