Eastern Partnership countries in favour of Belarusian “parliament’s” participation in Euronest

The parliaments of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine want to see in the EU-Neighborhood East Parliamentary Assembly (EURONEST PA) illegitimate Belarusian “deputies”, and not extraparliamentary opposition.

We remind that in line with Prague declaration, 60 parliamentarians are to be members of the Parliamentary Assembly, 10 from each participating country. However as the European Parliament does not recognize the Belarusian “national assembly” because of undemocratic election, Euronest was offered the following compromise on Belarus: 5 representatives of the Belarusian “parliament” and 5 representatives of the democratic opposition. In its turn Minsk declined this proposal. So the European Parliament decided to invite 10 observers of the opposition to the EU-Neighborhood East Parliamentary Assembly session.

“There are different reasons why deputies from former Soviet republics support the position of the Belarusian “parliament” and the authorities. Sometimes it is a question of bilateral relations, and sometimes common interests… besides, the situation with human rights and democracy in these countries is far from perfect,” Jacek Protasiewicz stated to journalists yesterday.

Thought the Euronest is a good platform for cooperation of Eastern European Parliaments, “the European Parliament cannot yield consent to work at any price,” Jacek Protasiewicz underlined.