The spring plenary part-session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will kick off today.
The functioning of democratic institutions in Turkey will take centre-stage at the spring session, APA reported.
Other highlights on the agenda include debates on the situation of human rights in the North Caucasus, the increased income inequalities and the protection of refugee women from gender-based violence.
His Majesty the King of Spain and the President of the Hellenic Republic, Prokopis Pavlopoulos, will be addressing the Assembly. The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Niels Muiznieks, will present his annual activity report 2016. Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, will answer questions from parliamentarians, and Ioannis Kasoulides, the Cypriot Foreign Minister, will be speaking in the context of the Cypriot Chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers.
Other highlights of the session will be the debates on ‘25 years of the CPT, achievements and improvements needed', ‘Abusive use of the Interpol system: the need for more stringent legal safeguards' and ‘The protection of the rights of parents and children belonging to religious minorities'.
There have also been requests for an urgent debate on ‘Political consequences of the new Israeli Settlement Regulation Law' and for a current affairs debate on ‘European values under threat: addressing rising populism, xenophobia, antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe'.
The Assembly will decide its final agenda on the opening day of the session.
The Azerbaijani delegation led by Samad Seyidov, chairman of the Azerbaijani Parliament’s committee on international and interparliamentary relations will also attend the event.
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