Doc. 8007

6 February 1998

Review of action taken by the Committee of Ministers on Parliamentary Assembly recommendations

Communication

Committee of Ministers

Letter from Mr Johannes Dohmes, Chairman of the Ministers’ Deputies to the President of the Assembly, dated 2 February 1998

Dear Madam President,

Thank you for your letter of 5 December 1997 concerning replies by the Committee of Ministers to Assembly Recommendations. As you know, the Deputies wish to maintain a sustained and meaningful dialogue with the Assembly, and speedy responses to Assembly texts are an important part of this dialogue.

The Deputies have recently adopted a series of decisions on the subject. I enclose a copy. You will note that the intention of these decisions is to give faster, more concise replies which contain more information of substance.

…

Yours sincerely,

Signed: Johannes DOHMES

Chairman of the Ministers' Deputies

615th meeting – 20 January 1998

Item 1.3

1.3

REVIEW OF ACTION TAKEN BY THE COMMITTEE OF MINISTERS

ON PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY RECOMMENDATIONS

(CM/Del/Dec(97)612/1.3, CM(97)154)

Decisions

The Deputies, having emphasised the importance of rapidly adopting a reply to each Recommendation:

1.       agreed in future to rely more often on the expertise available within the Ministers' Deputies, the relevant Rapporteur Group and the Secretariat, in preparing replies to Assembly Recommendations;

2.       instructed the Secretariat to place immediately on their agenda any Assembly Recommendation for which sufficient elements for a reply were available;

3.       decided, in the case of Assembly Recommendations not forwarded to a steering committee for opinion, to set a time-limit of nine months, after communication of those Recommendations to the Committee of Ministers, for adopting a reply (interim or final);

4.       decided to adopt, when conducting their initial examination of the texts adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly, a reply common to all the texts, dealing with the procedure to be followed;

5.       approved the following guidelines for the drawing up of draft replies to Recommendations:

-       priority should be given to final replies (taking stock of the situation while at the same time informing the Assembly of the intentions of the Committee of Ministers with regard to the specific proposals);

-       priority should be given to concise replies (concentrated on the political views of the Committee of Ministers; any technical opinions of other bodies could be added as appendices);

-       priority should be given to substance rather than procedure;

-       where Recommendations are to be examined, and the replies to them, prepared by a Rapporteur Group, care should be taken to ensure that they are given priority treatment in that Rapporteur Group's order of business;

-       a steering committee should be consulted where there is a need for technical expertise which is not available within the Secretariat.