A thirty-seven-member, cross-party delegation from the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), headed by Renate Wohlwend (Liechtenstein, EPP/CD), will observe the 26 March parliamentary elections in Ukraine, PACE press office informs.
The delegation, which will work alongside observers from the OSCE and NATO Parliamentary Assemblies and the European Parliament, will arrive in Kyiv on 23 March. They are due to meet party representatives, election officials and representatives of civil society and the media as well as observing polling on the day of the vote.
The delegation will be accompanied by a member of the Venice Commission, the Council of Europe’s group of independent legal experts, which has adopted opinions on Ukraine’s laws on elections of people's deputies and the State redister of voters.
A delegation from the Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities will be observing the local and regional elections, which take place on the same day as the parliamentary elections.
A four-member PACE pre-election delegation which visited the country from 28 February to 2March 2006 welcomed in a statement the “vastly improved atmosphere” in which the electoral campaign was taking place, but said some areas of concern remained.
The delegation is composed as follows:
Socialist Group (SOC)
|
Abdülkadir ATEŞ
Jaime BLANCO
Anna ČURDOVÁ
Andreas GROSS
Jean-Pol HENRY |
Turkey
Spain
Czech Republic
Switzerland
Belgium |
Sinikka HURSKAINEN Finland
Tadeusz IWIŃSKI Poland
Tony LLOYD United Kingdom
Rainder STEENBLOCK Germany
Frans TIMMERMANS Netherlands
Biruté VĖSAITĖ Lithuania
Group of the European People’s Party (EPP/CD)
Pedro AGRAMUNT Spain
Jean-Guy BRANGER France
Erol Aslan CEBECI Turkey
Åse Gunhild Woie DUESUND Norway
Urszula GACEK Poland
Andres HERKEL Estonia
Oskars KASTĒNS Latvia
Ibrahim ÖZAL Turkey
Kimmo SASI Finland
Renate WOHLWEND* Liechtenstein
Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE)
Gurgen ARSENYAN Armenia
Stef GORIS Belgium
Mike HANCOCK United Kingdom
Johannes RANDEGGER Switzerland
François ROCHEBLOINE France
Hanne SEVERINSEN* Denmark
Gabor SZALAY Hungary
Jelleke VEENENDAAL Netherlands
European Democrat Group (EDG)
Toomas ALATALU Estonia
Mevlüt ÇAVUŞOĞLU* Turkey
Nigel EVANS United Kingdom
Morten MESSERSCHMIDT Denmark
Ganira PASHAYEVA Azerbaijan
Yuri SOLONIN Russia
Emanuelis ZINGERIS Lithuania
Group of the Unified European Left (UEL)
Doros CHRISTOUDOULIDES* Cyprus
Venice Commission
Angel SANCHEZ NAVARRO, Expert Spain
* These members were part of the pre-election delegation.
