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The next session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) will be held from 25 to 28 January 2021 in a hybrid manner, allowing members to participate remotely or attend in-person in Strasbourg, the PACE website reported. 

During this winter part-session, the Assembly will elect the Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe, the Secretary General of the Assembly and the judges in respect of Greece and Switzerland. These elections will be held by individual electronic voting.

In the framework of the German Presidency of the Committee of Ministers, German Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, Heiko Maas, will address the Assembly and take questions. Secretary General Marija Pejčinović Burić will make a statement and also take questions.

One focus of the Assembly debate will be the ethical, legal and practical considerations towards a Covid-19 vaccine. Other topics on the agenda include ethnic profiling in Europe, restrictions on NGO activities in Council of Europe member States and discrimination against persons dealing with chronic illness.

Debates will also be held on the independence of judges in Poland and in the Republic of Moldova and on the implementation of judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. Debates on the progress of the Assembly’s monitoring procedure and on post-monitoring dialogue with Montenegro are foreseen.

A report on parliamentary elections in Georgia will also be discussed. Lastly, the Assembly will have to determine its position on the modification of the Assembly’s Rules of Procedure – follow-up to Resolution 2319 (2020) on the Complementary joint procedure between the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly in response to a serious violation by a member State of its statutory obligations.