“Cooperatively, Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania are building up in tune the rim of freedom, that shield of Europe which protects not only our states but also the entire European milieu,” – Andriy Parubiy
In his joint press conference appearance, the Verkhovna Rada Chairman A.Parubiy, in concert with the Lithuanian and Polish speakers, expressed gratitude to all the conferees for their pro-grade and upscale work resulted at the end in signing a final document which seems to be a road map for further interaction between the three co-acting forces.
“Barely it has been by pure luck that 80 per cent of this document makes safety, security, defence and energy issues, in which we have found a very deep understanding," said A. Parubiy.
The resolution on further establishment of a security committee the Verkhovna Rada Chairman called "a decision of highest importance”. The body is thought to “accumulate” all the security threats on stream to date to be then dealt with.
"Our countries are well aware what the cost of failure is when they cannot protect their freedom. Therefore, one should not believe that Russia would become democratic tomorrow," he said. – What indeed we need to believe in is that we shall make our security and defence so strong and powerful that there will be no chance - either for Putin or anyone else to encroach upon and have a chance over our independence".
Among the pivotal decisions made during the assembly there was named a would-be visit to Washington to meet the newly minted U.S. Congress’s leadership.
The head of parliament also considers it very important that the next, tenth, meeting of the assembly has been scheduled for Kyiv in early June. Aside from Lithuania-Poland-Ukraine conferees, he has invited representatives of the Ukraine-Moldova-Georgia Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, as well as representatives of the Baltic (Inter-Parliamentary) Assembly - Estonia and Latvia. "This move shall significantly enhance our discourse and will make these aspirations, which we talk about here, more coherent. We do hope for their participation and support in our next meeting," said A. Parubiy.
The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada predicted launching the security committee at the next assembly meeting. "This committee is seen to absorb all the dangers we have faced up to date - economic, energy and military - in one centralized think tank in order to make joint decisions, a joint action plan for our countries," he stated in conclusion.