YEREVAN, MARCH 29, ARMENPRESS. The agenda of the spring sitting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE)  is rather busy – it features interesting reports, which will also be addressed by the Armenian delegation.

A new co-rapporteur for Armenia will be appointed at the April sitting of PACE, because the previous co- rapporteur wasn’t elected in the Italian parliamentary elections.

It is highly likely for PACE to have a new president in April, because incumbent Michele Nicoletti failed to be elected to the Italian parliament in the election.

ARMENPRESS had an interview with Tsarukyan faction MP, member of the Armenian delegation to PACE Naira Zohrabyan about the upcoming sitting of the assembly.

Zohrabyan says a very interesting situation has been created around PACE since incumbent president Michele Nicoletti was not elected to the Italian parliament as an MP during the recent elections, which means that a change of PACE president is expected soon.

“The PACE charter doesn’t allow lawmakers who weren’t elected to keep their mandates until the formation of new delegations, and we don’t know if the Italian parliament will come with a new delegation in the April 23 sitting or whether it will be the old delegation. Nevertheless, even if this issue doesn’t arise during the April sitting, and according to our information the PACE president will nevertheless attend the April sitting, the Socialist group will nominate a new president in July, because according to an internal political agreement the Socialist group of PACE is entitled to nominate a president,” Zohrabyan said.

Armenia co-rapporteur Giuseppe Galati was not elected to the Italian parliament, and a new co-rapporteur for Armenia will be nominated in April.

“The agenda has a very important reports relating to internally displaced peoples’ humanitarian issues. Here the Armenian delegation has worked on the report with its recommendations”, she said.

Zohrabyan also added that interesting debates can be expected in terms of another report on xenophobia and racism, taken into account the drastic increase of xenophobia also in Azerbaijan.

The spring sitting of PACE will take place April 23-27, 2018.

English –translator/editor: Stepan Kocharyan