The Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, which brings together the European Parliament and the parliaments of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, postponed its first meeting, which was due to take place in Brussels on Wednesday (24 March).
The meeting, set to have been held under the parliamentary aspect of the EU's 'Eastern Partnership', was cancelled as Belarus and the European Parliament failed to agree on the composition of the 10-member delegation representing the East European country in the assembly.
The Belarusian parliament is the only assembly in Europe in which none of the opposition parties are represented, according to Vigenin. To restore political balance, the European Parliament proposed to invite representatives of the Belarusian opposition and non-governmental organisations to Euronest meetings as observers, but Minsk disagreed.
In a December 2009 resolution, MEPs had insisted that "Belarus will be invited to participate fully and on an equal basis in the Euronest Assembly […] as soon as free and fair elections to the Belarusian parliament take place".
Vigenin, who chairs the delegation, explained that the European Parliament's Conference of Presidents, its top political body, decided to postpone the meeting after reading the six official positions of Eastern partners. "All of them stressed that Belarus should participate fully and equally in the Euronest Assembly," he said.
The same message was delivered by Belarusian opposition leader Alexander Milinkevich in an interview with EurActiv. "We cannot enter this programme by the back door" (EurActiv 01/03/10).
The Bulgarian MEP also said he was planning to invite the heads of national Euronest delegations in Brussels to discuss the preparatory stages in the run-up to the assembly's constitutive meeting.
"This is a joint project and we have to show respect to all our partners," he stressed.
Observers of local elections
Ahead of local elections in Belarus on 25 April, the socialist MEP also noted that "it would be a positive sign if they invite the European Parliament to send observers," said Vigenin.
The European Parliament does not usually send observers to local elections. However, its foreign affairs committee (AFET) decided on Tuesday (23 March) to send such an ad hoc team to monitor a local electoral poll in Georgia on 30 May.
"The same happened last autumn in Kosovo," a European Parliament press officer told EurActiv.
Belarus should not be a central issue
The European Parliament delegation chair nonetheless warned against making Belarus a central issue of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly, preferring instead to concentrate on substance, like evaluating the Eastern Partnership.
He also indicated that a roadmap for reform in Belarus - to be prepared by MEPs in close cooperation with the High Representative, Catherine Ashton, and the commissioner responsible for enlargement and neighbourhood policy, Stefan Füle - will be the basis for deciding the country's involvement in Euronest.
