Keeping yourself on the right track – or we should say in the right corridor is definitely an issue when visiting the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Keeping the main agenda in mind also turned out to be a challenge for the delegates attending the meeting in question – due to delaying quarrels about the order of matters. I kept longing for more drastic actions and more belief in the values these delegates are to hand over to our generation one day.

The fourth part of the 2008 Ordinary Session of the PACE was held in Strasbourg the 29 September to 3 October. I had the honour of assisting at the ALDE group meetings and was thereby also welcome to view the plenary discussions. I also met with delegates from Azerbaijan, discussed life and politics with young liberal initiators from Belarus and took part in a dinner celebrating a hopefully growing Finnish-Polish cooperation.

Monday started with an ALDE group meeting, where a new young initiative for a liberal party in Belarus was introduced by Pavel Morozau, the Leader of Belarusian Ruch International - a network of new generation leaders for democratic Belarus. Also, ALDE enjoyed the visit from the former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation and leader of the “People’s Democratic Union”, Mr. Mikhail Kasyanov. During his visit, Kasyanov expressed his concerns for democracy in the Russian Federation, the sliding towards totalitarianism and the present as well as possible future aggression. Kasyanov discussed the case of Georgia and pointed to the similarities to Sevastopol – the demilitarization of military bases and Russian territorial claims on the Crimean peninsula. The Russian irritation recently shown towards Ukraine was also an active topic during Kasyanov’s press conference at the PACE. Kasyanov called on ALDE and the PACE to condemn the Russian actions in Georgia. Mátyás Eörsi, President of ALDE, also presented his views on the Georgian conflict as a co-Rapporteur for the monitoring of Georgia and member of the PACE delegation that visited Moscow and Tblisi in September. On Wednesday, the result of a thorough investigation in Georgia carried out by Human Rights Watch was presented to ALDE – pointing to discrimination of the human rights on both sides and a need for intervention. The group failed to reach a unison conclusion for action in the conflict and the final decision of the PACE, to put the Georgia conflict under further investigation before taking any further actions against either part in the conflict, was in deed disappointing.

The main focus during the Tuesday sessions was on the development in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Cyprus. The concern regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina was that the necessary constitutional reforms have yet not been executed, resulting in ethnical prerogatives still creating political hinders. On Cyprus, a final solution has still not been reached though both parties are showing real commitment to reunification – especially Mr. Demetris Christofias, President of the Republic of Cyprus, and Mr. Talat Leader of the Turkish Cypriot Community, both speakers at the PACE. The same terminology is used on both sides, yet numbers are working against a solution – the Turkish Cypriot community, 20 per cent of the total population, insists on an equal sharing of powers, while the Greek Cypriot population favor a relative representation at a shared government which in turn does not add up to the Turkish Cypriot expectations. A lasting solution is however in the hopes of all parties.

On the agenda of my last day at the PACE, Wednesday, was the refreshing of the youth agenda of Council of Europe – which was discussed in a circle Joint Councils on Tuesday evening. Both delegates from the PACE and the youth organizations present cherished the important role of CoE in Human Rights Education and described a will to maintain the important work carried out by the European Youth Centers but, yet a certain worry for future funding was present in the discussion.

Personally I enjoyed observing the climate at this event and I am thankful for the experience and contacts gained, but my confidence in world politics and an indisputability of law and human rights (in practice) was sadly to some extent lost in the corridors of Council of Europe.