On 25 March 2021, President of the ALDE group Jacques Maire addresses the Independent and Liberal Democrat Group of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.
In his address, Jacques Maire touched upon the challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and presented the efforts of the ALDE group and the liberal president of PACE Mr Rik Daems in the fields of environmental rights and artificial intelligence.
He underlined the role that the political groups had to play in the Council of Europe’s assemblies being the engines of action, innovation, negotiation, and cooperation. The groups had the capacity to address transversal issues.
Mr Maire also identified several challenges where particular attention was necessary: the non-respect of ECHR judgements and the attempts to supplant CoE legal instruments, such as the Istanbul Convention.
Whereas dialogue was chosen as the privileged approach in the Council of Europe, the ALDE group in PACE strongly believed that such dialogue could only come with the requirement of responsibility and full respect of Council of Europe’s human rights and democracy norms and values.
