The PABSEC Participation in the Winter Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Strasbourg, 27- 31 January 2020
On 27-31 January 2020, Mr. Cemal Ozturk, Head of the PABSEC Turkish Delegation and Mr. Ali Gurkan Ustundag, Administrator of the PABSEC International Secretariat, participated in the Winter Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), in Strasbourg.
The Plenary Session was addressed by the President of Georgia, the President of the Republic of Moldova, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Georgia, in his capacity of President of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe and the Secretary General of the Council of Europe.
The Assembly elected Mr. Rik Daems (Belgium) as the new PACE President and twenty Vice-Presidents from Turkey, Liechtenstein, United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Spain, Finland, Georgia, Latvia, Italy, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Croatia, France, Lithuania, Belgium and the Russian Federation. The Assembly also elected the Judge to the European Court of Human Rights, from France.
The PACE agenda included the functioning of democratic institutions in Poland, threats to media freedom and journalists’ security, and the protection of freedom of religion in the workplace. The Assembly also held joint debates on issues of concrete actions against human trafficking and smuggling of migrants; missing refugee and migrant children in Europe; organ transplant tourism and combating trafficking in human tissues and cells. The minimum standards for electoral systems and the observation of elections in Belarus were also among the issues discussed by the PACE members.
The Assembly also held debates on the following topics “International obligations concerning the repatriation of children from war zones” and “Recent developments in Libya and in the Middle East: what consequences for Europe?”.
During the PACE Winter Session, the leaders of the Council of Europe and the 47 nations have issued a Statement, to launch the 70th Anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights, in 2020.
On the sidelines of the PACE Winter Session, Mr. Cemal Ozturk met with Mr. Wojciech Sawicki, Secretary General of the PACE, and discussed issues of common interest. Mr. Ozturk proposed the PACE Secretary General to organize joint events at different levels in order to strengthen the cooperation between the two Assemblies.