Europarliament: We did not invite Belarusian deputies
On January 14, the building of the European Parliament in Brussels hosted the first meeting of a working group over the formation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Eastern Partnership. It focused on how the national parliaments of EU countries should be included in this initiative.
Belarus was represented by Siarhei Maskevich, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives, and Nina Mazai, Chairperson of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Council of the Republic.
However, this does not mean that the European Parliament has recognized the Belarusian parliament as legitimate, a source in this European body told the European Radio for Belarus. The meeting was not organized by the European Parliament. It was organized by the Swedish parliament. Invitations were sent by Goran Lenmarker, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Swedish parliament.
Representative of European Parliament: "This meeting was organized by the Swedish parliament. The fact that it took place in the building of the Swedish parliament was simply a technical issue of having a venue. Indeed. the European Parliament has little to do with this event".
When asked why opposition leaders were not invited, our contact said that this issue was decided by the Swedish side, i.e. the European Parliament had nothing to do with this decision.
The European Parliament does not recognize the National Assembly of Belarus as legitimate, because the 2008 parliamentary elections were not recognized as free and fair.
Various European countries have different views on the invitation of Belarusian MPs to EURONEST.
Representative of European Parliament: "Parliamentarians from several EU member countries do not agree that the delegation of Belarus should comprise the members of the Belarusian parliament. Their national parliaments will not endorse this concept. The European Parliament does object to this concept as well. But, the European Parliament is not directly linked with this issue".
The meeting on January 14 was attended by representatives of Great Britain, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden and Spain. Lithuania cleared spoke out against the participation of the Belarusian parliamentarians.
There are several options for our country to participate in EURONEST. Firstly, MPs only can be part of the Belarusian delegation. Secondly, there could be both MPs and representatives of the opposition (5+5). The third option is that Belarus is represented by opposition politicians only.
Political analyst Yury Chavusau reckons that any participation of the opposition would be of status significance only. It would be insignificant for the real politics. But inviting Belarusian MPs would mean that EU values are disregarded.
The final decision about the Belarusian delegation will become known within the next several weeks. On January 21, this issue will be discussed by the president of the European Parliament, leaders of political factions and one independent MEP.
EURONEST's founding conference is preliminary planned to take place in March 2010. There will be 60 seats for MEPs and 10 seats for each of the Eastern Partnership member states: Belarus, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
