Pullicino Orlando takes up post in COE

Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando has taken up his position as vice-president of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe.

Dr Pullicino Orlando is back after attending the second part session of the 2004 Ordinary Session held in Strasbourg this week where he was accompanied by MPs Robert Arrigo and Joseph Falzon.

The Parliamentary Assembly brings together 626 members from the national parliaments of 45 democracies including 21 central and eastern European countries.

The assembly approved the credentials of the changed parliamentary delegation of Malta, which now includes the Parliamentary Secretary for the Elderly Helen D'Amato.

Malta had been chastised by the Parliamentary Assembly for having no women representatives.

Dr Pullicino Orlando, elected during the January session, chaired the assembly when it was debating the report by the Committee on Economic Affairs and Development on the budget of the Council of Europe for the financial year 2005 and on the report on the expenditure of the parliamentary assembly for the financial year 2005.

During the session, the assembly had a long debate on euthanasia based on a report by a Swiss MEP.

The parliamentarians gave the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee a year to prepare a new text, which brings together the widely diverging approaches expressed during the debate, among them of Mr Falzon.