Albanian lawmaker elected PACE vice president

STRASBROUG, Jan. 21 – Aleksander Biberaj of the governing Democratic Party was elected as one of the 20 vice presidents of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Monday. Spaniard LluMaria de Puig was elected as new PACE President to replace Dutch Ren顶an der Linden. “I am a convinced European and I regard the future of our institutions with optimism. I want to make a citizens’ Europe the watchword of my term in office. I believe that the Assembly’s task is to help shape a Europe which is being built for Europeans and by them,” he said. De Puig becomes the Assembly’s 24th President since it was established in 1949.