14/12/2011 Political Affairs and Democracy
Strasbourg, 14.12.2011 - In a draft Resolution adopted unanimously at a meeting in Paris today, the Political Affairs Committee stresses that the Council of Europe standard-setting, advisory and monitoring role should be appropriately reflected in the political documents of the Eastern Partnership of the EU (EaP) and the findings of its monitoring mechanisms fully taken into account. “We should seek synergies and complementarity and avoid overlaps and conflicting messages, as required by the 2007 Memorandum of Understanding between the Council of Europe and the EU ” the rapporteur Björn von Sydow (Sweden, SOC) said.
The Committee calls on the five Council of Europe member states (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) participating in the EaP and the EU-Neighbourhood East Parliamentary Assembly (Euronest), to ensure synergy, coordination and continuity with the work carried out by PACE, including by appointing to their delegations members of parliament who sit at the Assembly, or who have previously been members of it. It takes note that Belarus particpates in a limited manner in the Eastern Partnership process, and that its Parliament has not been allowed to sit at the Euronest Assembly.
The Eastern Partnership aims at building a comprehensive partnership between the European Union and six post-Soviet states – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine -, based on mutual interests and joint commitments to the fundamental values of democracy, the rule of law, human rights and fundamental freedoms, to which five of the six countries, with the exception of Belarus, have commited themselves as member states of the Council of Europe.