Strasbourg, 28/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - Anne Brasseur, a Liberal, has been elected 27th President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. She is the first Luxembourg national to hold the post. The only other woman to hold the post since 1949 is German Christian Democrat Leni Fischer, who was president from 1996 to 1999.
Brasseur takes over from French Conservative Jean-Claude Mignon who is a member of the European People's Party and who had been elected in January 2012 for a one-year term of office, once renewable. The hand-over of power between the two officials should simply have been a formality in accordance with the “rotation” agreement renewed in 2008 by the various political groups. For the record, the Spanish Socialist, Lluis Maria Puig, was at the helm from 2008 to 2010, Turkish Muslim-Democrat Mevlut Cavusoglu until 2012 and then Jean-Claude Mignon whose tenure has just come to an end.
The candidacy of Anne Brasseur, President of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats of Europe (ALDE), followed the pattern of this agreement, and the former Luxembourg minister for national education, vocational training and sports who has held a seat in Strasbourg since 1993 (with a break between 1999 and 2004) was the only person running since October. There was a new turn of events, however, only a few days before the vote, on 24 January, with the last-minute candidacy of Briton Robert Walter, President of the European Democrat Group (EDG), which did not sign the 2008 agreement and from which he withdrew in order to take this approach. It was therefore an “independent” challenger that Brasseur faced before winning the first round with an absolute majority of 165 votes (compared with 125 for Bob Walter).
When quizzed by the Luxembourg press several days before the vote, the now president of the PACE analysed the ins and outs of this surprise candidacy, underlining that her adversary had the support of the Russians as well as that of the Turks of Erdogan's party, AKP - two countries under monitoring procedure and whose representatives at the PACE perhaps hoped for less rigour on the human rights section of surveillance, she suggests in substance. Whatever, it is now Brasseur who will chair the work of the PACE until January 2016 and she noted the singular nature of this assembly from her very first speech: “All member states of the Council of Europe are represented on an equal footing and without distinction depending on their size, their geographical situation, the date of membership or even their belonging to the European Union”. She went on to add: “While our organisation must face enormous challenges - the rise in extremism and terrorism, people smuggling, violence against women and children and the dangers linked to new technologies to cite but a few - our role consists in giving political impetus to the work of the Council of Europe by making effective use of the tools available to us. We must value what unites us and not what divides us” (our translation). The Council of Europe has been seeking fresh impetus since the countries of Central and Eastern Europe joined the European Union in 2004, after accompanying these countries' march towards democracy and rule of law. Since then it has been reproached for being sluggish, or for having a highly formal and not very credible presence on the international scene. Giving it true political impetus is a genuine challenge that can only be raised with a more visible embodiment of the fundamental values of human rights for the continent of Europe. (VL/transl.jl)