Tarasiuk: Ukraine sees Euronest as subsidiary body

KYIV, May 4. /UKRINFORM/. The Verkhovna Rada's attitude to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly logically follows from Ukraine's attitude to the Eastern Partnership as a whole. The Ukrainian side sees Euronest as an additional form of cooperation, which will complement bilateral interaction within the framework of the EU-Ukraine Committee on Parliamentary Cooperation. Ukrainian MP Borys Tarasiuk announced this during the constituent meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Eastern Partnership in Brussels on May 3, an UKRINFORM correspondent in Brussels said.

While discussing the format of cooperation as part of Euronest, Tarasiuk noted that the assembly should become an effective parliamentary support of the Eastern Partnership and contribute to its "practical impact." "Over the two years of its existence, this initiative has brought some political dividends. The most important political effect of the Eastern Partnership was the clear separation of European neighbors [in the East] from the southern neighbors of Europe under the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). This trend should only strengthen in future and be reflected in the process of the ENP review. The states that have different aspirations and different opportunities in the context of the potential level of integration into the EU require different approaches from the EU," Tarasiuk said.

He noted that the Ukrainian side could not agree with the calls of certain EU member states regarding the priority attention to the southern dimension of the EU's foreign policy, including through the reallocation of funds within the ENP in favor of the southern neighbors. "In our opinion, the level of financial assistance to neighboring countries should directly depend on their actual progress in reform and good governance. The danger triggered by the lowering attention to the eastern partner countries, along with the limited practical impact of the Eastern Partnership on the development of integration processes in Eastern Europe, should be important issues on the agenda of the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly," Tarasiuk said.

In response to the speech by the Ukrainian deputy, President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek said that as a result of violent events in North Africa, the EU's foreign policy attention was really focused on the EU's southern neighbors. But at the same time, the EU is not planning to reject or give less weight to the eastern vector of its cooperation with neighboring countries. Buzek also said that Ukraine itself should perform a number of important tasks and solve problems that occur, in particular, in the context of observing the freedom of speech, assembly and the activities of opposition parties and movements.

The head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on European Integration, Tarasiuk, was elected a co-chair of Euronest from all partner countries currently participating in the activities of the assembly - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. Tarasiuk said that his election meant the recognition of Ukraine's significant contribution to the foundation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Eastern Partnership. He recalled that since the beginning of this work in 2009, the Verkhovna Rada had supported the idea of creating Euronest and taken every effort to unite around it the representatives of the national parliaments of all partner countries.

"I would not like to exaggerate the role of Ukraine, because Ukraine cannot do a deed instead of all delegations. But for our part we have done all that depended on us. Therefore, in my opinion, this election is the recognition by our colleagues in the European Parliament and the representatives of the national parliaments of all the partner countries of the efforts of Ukraine and the role it played to ensure that Euronest becomes a reality," Tarasiuk said.

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