Austrian lawmaker Petra Bayr elected new president of PACE

Austrian parliamentarian Petra Bayr has been elected as the new president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the Assembly announced on January 26.

Bayr succeeds Greece’s Theodoros Roussopoulos, whose two-year term in office has come to an end, Caliber.Az reports.

"Congratulations to Petra Bayr from Austria, who has just been elected as the 36th President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe!," PACE wrote on X.

A member of Austria’s National Council since 2002, Bayr has chaired the parliament’s foreign affairs committee since 2025.

She has served as a member of PACE since 2018 and previously led the Committee on Equality and Non-Discrimination from 2020 to 2022, as well as the Committee on the Election of Judges to the European Court of Human Rights between 2024 and 2025.

During her work as a rapporteur, Bayr has focused on combating discrimination, racism and intolerance, promoting women’s rights, addressing sexual violence in conflict, protecting women human rights defenders, and advancing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

By Aghakazim Guliyev