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European Union-Eastern Partnership PA is ground for discussions

Politics Materials 21 May 2009 11:11 (UTC +04:00)

Azerbaijan, Baku, May 21 / Trend , E. Ostapenko/ European Union-Eastern Partnership Parliamentary Assembly will be a just a forum for periodical meetings and discussions. It does not mean to establish decision-making body, senior European political analyst Antonio Missiroli said.

"It is not going to be an institution, it is going to be just a forum, in which members of the European parliamens and national parliamentary delegations from the partner countries will gather from time to time and discuss matters of common interest," Missiroli told Trend over telephone from Brussels. "It is not a decision-making body."

Kiev hosted a meeting on establishment of the Parliamentary Assembly of the European Parliament "European Union" on May 18.

Initial agreement has been reached to establish Parliamentary Assembly of the European Parliament's European Union Eastern Neighbors, Azerbaijani parliament's Law Policy and State-Building Committee Chairman Rovshan Rzayev told Trend .  

The Forum is relatively harmless instance, director of program at European Policy Center (Belgium) Missiroli said. It is meant to announce dialog and mutual knowledge without predetermining any policy outcome, he said.

European Union - Eastern Partnership PA will compose 120 members: 60 members from the European Parliament and 10 members of the parliaments each of the six countries, a source in the European Parliament said. Work of the parliamentary assembly will start only after the elections in the European Parliament in June. Then euro-parliamentarians will have summer holiday.

Eastern Partnership has been initiated by Poland and Sweden as a part of the neighborhood policy which aims to improve EU relations with the post Soviet countries. Eastern Partnership will cover six EU neighbor states - Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus.

Within the organization, talks will be held on cancellation of visas, introducing free trade zones and concluding strategic agreements. Projects on student exchange, protection of environment and energy supply will also be implemented.

Eastern partnership program took effect at the EU summit in Prague on May 7.

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