The recall of Pedro Agramunt, the current president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), is likely to be postponed to the PACE autumn session. According to available data, as result of signature collection for Agramunt’s resignation more than 120 signatures have been collected so far, however, that is not enough. It is necessary to ask for the Assembly’s voting, which should be done when there are a large number of delegates in the session hall. Meanwhile, as we have been informed, many delegations have already left Strasbourg.
Aravot.am asked a member of the Armenian delegation to the PACE, Naira Zohrabyan besides removing from the EPP political group, what else is needed to overturn Agramunt? Ms Zohrabyan answered, “Of course, there are signatures, but it still must be voted. 2/3 of the delegates who have the right to vote must vote. De Facto Agramunt is not PACE President, there is a Bureau decision. But 2/3 must vote so he won’t be a de jure president. And this is already a matter of political expediency. For example, the English delegation, with a considerable number of people, left for London: there was a problem connected to the voting for the Queen’s speech, so it is difficult to secure the two-thirds”.
Therefore, this issue will probably not be put to the vote during the PACE summer session and be postponed until the PACE autumn session. Also, in spite of the members of the Azerbaijani delegation, it is fixed that the voting will be open, electronic, note close. Let us note, that currently Agramunt is in Madrid.
Naira Zohrabyan informed us that when entering the PACE building representatives of a number of Azerbaijani NGOs had informed her, that Agramunt has hired a lawyer to start a process against PACE, and the costs are covered by the member of the Azerbaijani delegation to PACE, Elkhan Suleymanov.
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
