FOR THE MEMBERS OF THE ASSEMBLY
Secretariat of the Assembly
Synopsis n° 2001/140
14 December 2001
The Bureau of the Assembly, meeting on 10 December 2001 in Paris with Lord Russell-Johnston in the Chair, as regards:
Conflict in the Chechen Republic: took note of the information provided by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe on the presence of its experts in the office of Mr Kalamanov, and of the information provided by the Secretary General of the Assembly on the activities of the Joint Working Group on Chechnya (consultation on a political solution to the conflict on 28 and 29 November in Strasbourg, visit to the region and to Moscow from 2 to 6 December);
January 2002 Part-Session (Strasbourg, 21-25 January 2002): took note of supplementary information with regard to the draft order of business;
Co-operation with the European Parliament: heard a statement by the Secretary General of the Assembly on the meeting between the Presidential Committee and the Conference of Presidents of the European Parliament (Strasbourg, 15 November 2001) and took note of the follow-up given by him;
Relations with Belarus: heard a statement by the Chairman of the Political Affairs Committee on the Committee’s discussions on this issue at its last meeting (Vilnius, 19-20 November 2001) and approved a visit by an ad hoc sub-committee of the Political Affairs Committee to Minsk on a date and on the conditions decided by the Committee;
Request for observer status by the National Assembly of the Republic of Korea: decided to resume consideration of this question at one of its next meetings on the basis of a Secretariat memorandum on the external relations of the Parliamentary Assembly;
Observation of elections:
declassified the report by the ad hoc committee on the observation of the Kosovo Assembly elections (17 November 2001);
took note that no date has yet been fixed for the parliamentary elections in “The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” in 2002;
decided to increase the membership of the ad hoc committee for the observation of the parliamentary elections in Ukraine (31 March 2002) to a maximum of 30 members;
Situation of political prisoners in Azerbaijan: approved the proposal by the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights to convene a meeting in Paris on 17-18 December 2001 between, the Rapporteur of the Legal Affairs Committee, the co-rapporteurs of the Monitoring Committee and three members of the Azeri parliamentary delegation to discuss the question of the release or retrial of the persons considered as political prisoners in Azerbaijan;
Joint Parliamentary Conference on terrorism (St. Petersburg, 27-28 March 2002): approved the joint organisation by the Parliamentary Assembly and the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of this Conference, on the conditions outlined by the Secretary General of the Assembly in his memorandum, possibly with the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the European Parliament;
Bureau and Standing Committee meetings in March 2002: agreed to hold these meetings at the seat of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the CIS in St. Petersburg on 25 and 26 March 2002;
Election of the Deputy Secretary General: took note of the procedure and timetable and proposed that the Standing Committee hold interviews with the candidates at its meeting in Lucerne on 29 May 2002;
European Committee for the prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (CPT): drew up the list of candidates in respect of Estonia and Turkey and forwarded them to the Committee of Ministers;
proposed the following reference for ratification by the Assembly:
Motion for a resolution on the need for European support in ensuring a prosperous future for the Kaliningrad region: for report to the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development (Doc. 9280);
Appointments:
Mr Barsony (Hungary, SOC) to the fifth Meeting of Working Table I (Skopje, 17-18 December 2001);
Mr Clerfayt (Belgium, LDR) to the 49th plenary meeting of the Venice Commission (Venice, 14-15 December 2001);
Mrs Vermot-Mangold (Switzerland, SOC) to the 2nd World Congress against the sexual exploitation of children (Yokohama, Japan, 17-20 December 2001), without budgetary implications for the Parliamentary Assembly;
the Presidential Committee to the 107th Conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (Marrakech, Morocco, 17-23 March 2002) ;
set up an ad hoc committee of the Bureau to attend the meeting between the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development and the US Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee (Washington D.C., 28-30 January 2002);
Future meetings:
Paris, Monday 14 January 2002 at 9.30 am
Strasbourg, Monday 21 January 2002 at 8.30 am
Strasbourg, Friday 25 January 2002 at 8.30 am
St Petersburg, Monday 25 March 2002 at 3 pm
Strasbourg, Monday 22 April 2002 at 8.30 am
Strasbourg, Friday 26 April 2002 at 8.30 am
Lucerne, Tuesday 28 May 2002 at 3.00 p.m.
Horst Schade/Agnès Nollinger