Pursuant to the competence and on behalf of the leadership of the Verkhovna Rada, the Committee together with the parliamentary factions formed compositions of the permanent delegations of the Verkhovna Rada to the Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation, GUAM, NATO, and others.

The Committee members actively worked in almost all Permanent Delegations of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine - to PACE (Chairperson of the Permanent Delegation Ariyev I.V., Vovk V.I., Liovochkina Yu.V., Huz I.V., Zalishchuk S.P.), OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (Hopko H.M., Deputy Head of the Permanent Delegation Prysiazhniuk O.A.), NATO PA (Head of the Permanent Delegation Klympush-Tsyntsadze I.O., Tarasiuk B.I., Larin S.M.), the Executive Committee of the National Parliamentary Group of Ukraine in the Inter-Parliamentary Union (Deputy Chairperson of the Executive Committee Hopko H.M.).

Thanks to the active work of the members of the Permanent Delegation of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine to the PACE, after the start of the aggressive actions of the Russian Federation against Ukraine they managed to achieve tough reaction of the PACE, which was reflected in several resolutions of the Assembly (Resolution 1974 (2014)). The Assembly strongly condemned the violation of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity by the Russian Federation and pointed to the inadmissibility of such actions from the Member State of the Council of Europe (Resolution 1988 (2014)).

Ukrainian MPs worked at the bilateral level with foreign colleagues - parliamentarians from the Member States of the Council of Europe. Taking in account long-lasting Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, in the framework of the January session of PACE it was decided to extend until the end of 2015 sanctions against Russian delegation introduced by the Assembly last year - suspension till the end of 2015 of the rights of the delegation of the Russian Federation to vote, to be represented in the Bureau of the Assembly, the PACE Presidential Committee, the PACE Standing Committee, and the rights to participate in election-observation missions.

As part of the June 2015 session, the Assembly adopted a Resolution on the missing persons during the conflict in Ukraine. Ukraine was urged to create a dedicated governmental mechanism, tasked with the co-ordination of the work of all governmental and non-governmental bodies working on the issue of missing persons, and in particular to ensure sufficient budgetary funds for the functioning of the mechanism; set up a mechanism of State compensation and support to the families of missing persons and ensure that the families concerned are informed about the existence of this mechanism.

It is important to stress that in the text of the Resolution appeared the recognition that the conflict in Ukraine is actually a Russian aggression, and regarding Crimea introduced was the term ‘occupied.’ The Resolution was supported by the vast majority of those present, and voted against only German Communist Andrey Gunko. 54 votes were cast in favor of the Resolution. The amendment declaring Russia an aggressor country, received support of 48 votes, and seven were against it.

Permanent Delegation of the Verkhovna Rada to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, formed of people’s deputies of the eighth convocation carries out a solid and important piece of work in the framework of the OSCE aimed at protecting the interests of Ukraine. Thus, our delegation managed to overcome the pro-Russian lobby in this influential international institution and achieve during the 24^th annual session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Helsinki in July 2015 adoption of two resolutions - Resolution on the Continuation of Clear, Gross and Uncorrected Violations of OSCE Commitments and International Norms by the Russian Federation, declaring that the actions by the Russian Federation in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, as well as in certain areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of Ukraine, constitute acts of military aggression against Ukraine; and Resolution on Abducted and Illegally Detained Ukrainian Citizens in the Russian Federation, calling on the Russian Federation to immediately release Nadiya Savchenko, Oleg Sentsov and other Ukrainian citizens that are illegally detained in Russia, as well as to ensure their safe return to Ukraine.

The Committee was actively engaged in building-up of the organizational structure of bilateral interparliamentary cooperation. Under the auspices of the Committee established were 69 parliamentary groups on interparliamentary relations with parliaments of foreign countries, one of the main tasks of which is to define and harmonize with their foreign counterparts priorities of development of the contractual legal relationship of Ukraine with corresponding countries and the involvement of international experience for the development of national legislation.

In the framework of the interparliamentary exchange the leadership of the Committee held six receptions of delegations of foreign parliaments’ committees dealing with the issues of external relations, in particular representatives of the parliaments of Georgia, Romania, Hungary, Lithuania, France, UK, etc.

They also held over 350 protocol meetings of the Committee leadership with foreign parliamentary delegations, ambassadors, representatives of various foreign institutions. During these meetings they discussed prospects of collaboration aimed at supporting the development of cooperation at economic, financial and political levels, and creation and functioning of deputy groups of the Verkhovna Rada on interparliamentary relations with corresponding countries.