Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg is one of the two main statutory bodies of the Council of Europe. Representatives from 47 national parliaments of the European continent with different structures cooperate in the framework of the meeting. The Parliamentary Assembly was the first parliamentary body at European level after the Second World War. Since January 2014 Anne Brasseur is the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council.

Tasks

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council has statutory rights, which include in particular the election of the Secretary General and the Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe, the selection of the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council and the election of the judges of the European Court of Human Rights. In addition, new Member States may be taken up by the Committee of Ministers only after a positive vote of the Parliamentary Assembly.

The most important political task consists in the creation of a political dialogue between parliamentarians of the Member States and with the observer delegations. The texts adopted by her serve as guidance for the Committee of Ministers and the national governments and parliaments. In addition, the initiatives of the Parliamentary Assembly have led to a number of international treaties (European conventions ) and other instruments. The best known is the European Convention on Human Rights, which was adopted in 1950. Convention drafts are submitted each to the Assembly for opinion by the Committee of Ministers before their adoption.

When a State of the Euro in Europe, observed the Parliamentary Assembly, as the accession commitments are respected. The competent Monitoring Committee also observed, as Member States comply with the commitments they received after accession. Once a year the Monitoring Committee of the Assembly shall submit a report on the results of his work.

Composition

National delegations

The Assembly consists of 318 members and 318 alternates. In this case, each Member State of the Council of Europe has a fixed number of representatives, which depends on their population. Smaller states have doing great on the principle of degressive proportionality, however, more representatives per capita than. Germany, France, Great Britain, Italy and Russia form ( and a corresponding number of alternates), the largest national delegations, each with 18 members; the smallest are those of Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco and San Marino with two members. The parliaments of Canada, Israel and Mexico, are not members of the Euro Europe, have observer status with the Parliamentary Assembly.

Members of the Assembly are not directly elected, but appointed by the national parliaments from among themselves out. The balance of political parties in each national delegation must be in a fair manner to that in the national parliament correspond. The 18- member delegation of the German Bundestag about belong to the 17th electoral term of seven members of the CDU / CSU, the SPD four, three of the FDP and the two of the Greens and the Left. Head of Delegation is Joachim Horster (CDU / CSU).

The following table lists the Member States and the number of their representatives.

Observer delegations

Before states are members of the Council, they are invited to send a visiting delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly. Belarus ( Belarus) had this status until its withdrawing by the Parliamentary Assembly after the circumcision of the parliamentary rights of the National Assembly of Belarus and the introduction of the death penalty on the initiative of President Lukashenko in 1997.

There is also the status as an observer delegation. This status was granted by the Knesset in 1957 Israel became the first non-European Parliament. Meanwhile, the parliaments of Canada and Mexico have observer status. The other observer countries Japan and the United States to send delegations to the OECD debates of the "extended meeting ".

The Palestinian Legislative Council (Palestinian Legislative Council ) may also send observers.

Since 2011, the Parliament of Morocco the status of " partner for democracy" and can thus participate in the work of the Parliamentary Assembly.

Parliamentary delegations from Kazakhstan, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria are invited to each session of the Parliamentary Assembly.

Fractions

The work in the Parliamentary Assembly takes place not only in the context of national delegations, but also in fractions in which supranational join together MEPs with similar worldview. To form a group of at least twenty members from at least six different Member States are required. Currently there are five fractions that correspond roughly to political parties at European level and the political groups in the European Parliament. However, the degree of organization of political groups is much lower than for example in the European Parliament in the Parliamentary Assembly: National parties and individual MPs change frequently, fractions, and reconciliations are performed more often along national rather than ideological lines. This is due not least to the fact that the party systems of the Euro Europe members are mutually different than the party systems of the EU Member States. Secondly, the cooperation in the fractions is therefore less constant because changed the composition of the Parliamentary Assembly at each national election.

The following list outlines the fractions of the Parliamentary Assembly in more detail on (April 2013).

Committees

The most important work of the Parliamentary Assembly shall be done within the following technical committees:

  • Joint committee
  • Standing Committee
  • Policy Committee
  • Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights
  • Committee on Economic Affairs and Development
  • Committee on Social, Health and Family
  • Committee on Migration, Refugees and Population
  • Committee on Culture, Science and Education
  • Committee on Environment and Agriculture and Local and Regional Affairs
  • Committee for equality between women and men
  • Committee on the Rules of Procedure and Immunities
  • Committee for compliance with the commitments made by the Member States of the Council of Europe ( Monitoring Committee )

President

The President of the Assembly have been:

Albania Bulgaria Finland Greece Portugal Christian Democratic Union (Germany) Christian Democratic People's Party of Switzerland Robert Walter Socialist Party (Netherlands) Vlaams Belang Paul-Henri Spaak Belgian Labour Party Guy Mollet Fernand Dehousse John Edwards (English politician) Per Federspiel Geoffrey de Freitas Liberal Party of Switzerland Giuseppe Vedovato Christian Democracy (Italy) Hans de Koster Russell Johnston (disambiguation) Jean-Claude Mignon Integrated Authority File
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