English

EURONEST PA holds inaugural conference without Belarus

 

Representatives of Belarus were absent from the inaugural conference held by the EU-Neighborhood East Parliamentary Assembly (EURONEST PA) in Brussels on May 3, said BelaPAN.

The decision to hold the conference without representatives of Belarus was made unanimously by the leaders of the political groups in the European Parliament at a meeting in February this year.

Initially scheduled for late March 2010, the EURONEST PA's inaugural conference was postponed for more than a year because of differences of opinion regarding the composition of the Belarusian delegation.

The EURONEST PA was expected to consist of 60 members of the European Parliament and a 10-member delegation from each of the six post-Soviet states participating in the European Union's Eastern Partnership program, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.

Five of the six delegations would consist of members of Parliament, but no decision so far has been made as to who will be on the Belarusian delegation, as the Belarusian legislature is widely believed to have been formed in a way that was far from democratic standards.

Many European politicians have suggested that opposition forces should necessarily be represented in the Belarusian delegation to the Assembly.
The Belarusian authorities have rejected a composition formula whereby the country’s delegation to the EURONEST PA would include five members of the House of Representatives and five opposition politicians.