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Ian Micallef: ’’The Congressâ€™ monitoring must be regular if it is to be effective’’

25 February 2010 15:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Victoria Dementieva â€“ APA. Acting President of the Congress Ian Micallef held an exchange of views with the Committee of Ministers on the current situation of the Congress, in the light of the Council of Europeâ€™s reform proposed by Secretary General ThorbjÃ¸rn Jagland, APA reports. He stressed that the Congress embarked on its own review of activities and structures, aimed in particular at increasing the rhythm, pace and extent of its monitoring missions. ’’Monitoring has to be regular if it is to be effective, and should be more concrete, involving on-the-spot activities and deeper cooperation with governments in addressing the situations highlighted in country reports,’’ he said. â€œAnother aspect of our monitoring activities is the observation of local and regional elections. We are continuing our work in this respect. At next month’s session we will be examining the report of our December election observation in Azerbaijan, where we were the only international observers. We are in the process of preparing an observation mission to Georgia, where we have been invited to observe the local elections on 30 May. The election of our own Secretary General is scheduled to be held on the first day of the session, on 17 Marchâ€, said Micallef.