Chair A.Parubiy to fly to Poland over Carpathians

Information Department of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Secretariat
05 September 2017, 17:15

The Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Andriy Parubiy will on September the 6th take part in The ‘Europe of the Carpathians’ Conference 2017 taking place in Krynica Zdroj, Poland. The major goal of his visit is to discuss the urgent problems of the Carpathian region and the solutions, and undertake preparations for certain joint projects.

The ‘Europe of the Carpathians’ Conference was set up in 2010 by the Sejm of the Republic of Poland and Marek Kuchcinski personally.
The cycle gives a solid ground for meetings and discussions of parliamentarians, government dignitaries, home rule officials and non-government representatives of the member states of the Carpathian Convention – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovak Republic, Ukraine – to talk over the topical issues of the region, proper solutions, preparations aimed at promotion of cooperation and concerted actions.
In the time span of 2003-2007 the Convention had been the focusing magnet of integration within the Carpathian region. The multilateral treaty was signed in Kyiv in 2003 and entered into force in January 2006. It is the only multi-level governance mechanism covering the whole of the Carpathian area and, besides the Alpine Convention, the second sub-regional treaty-based regime for the protection and sustainable development of a mountain region worldwide. During the next five-year run the Carpathian community was shifting their minds towards thinking that the initiative was to assume a sub-regional nature throughout the area.
The ultimate objective of the whole range of activities of the cycle “Europe of the Carpathians” is a European macro-regional development strategy for the Carpathian region mainly orientated at economic cooperation, environmental protection, and culture.
Another strategical move is to be inclusion of the “Via Carpatia” road in the Trans-European Transport Networks TEN-N designed to span a set of road, rail, air and water transport networks in the European Union. The inclusion will surely contribute in a steady growth of the whole region vastly.
The conference is semiannual.
The ‘Europe of the Carpathians’ initiative is chiefly aimed at a Poland-Slovakia-Ukraine collaboration within the framework of the “Green Carpathians” project (1999-2000). Particular attention is given to well-balanced development of the Central-Eastern Europe regions, pursuing the so-called “economy and ecology equilibrium” policy. The above initiative then deepened to a cycle format of The “Europe of the Carpathians’ Conference.
While at the Conference, the Chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is having a series of bilateral meetings with the Polish top dignitaries, and is scheduled to deliver a speech “How We Can Change the EU?” at a discussion panel.

Nota Bene:

In 2013 the Conference leaders signed the Krasiczyn declaration to jointly coordinate the regional growth through interstate, regional, and cross-border deepened cooperation. The declaration also envisages pooling of combined actions by the societies, parliaments, governments and local authorities of the Carpathian area states with the aim to promote the local interests inside the European Union. Boosting of inter-parliamentary dialogue within the Conference framework is keenly topical for parliamentary discussions at the Ukraine-Poland Inter-Parliamentary Assembly meetings.

History of the Carpathian Convention in brief

In 2001, the Government of Ukraine requested the UN Environment to facilitate an inter-governmental consultation process among the Carpathian countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, then-Serbia and Montenegro, Slovak Republic and Ukraine) with the aim of drafting an international convention on the Carpathian Mountains to be adopted at the 5th Ministerial Conference “Environment for Europe” in 2003. The first significant step took place with the formation of the Alpine-Carpathian Partnership, launched during the International Year of the Mountain (2002). An initial, informal meeting was hosted by the Ukrainian government in Kyiv on 06-07 November 2001, where participants agreed to a list of areas of cooperation from which the Carpathian environment would benefit. The formal negotiations between the Carpathian countries facilitated by UN Environment and supported by Austria, Italy, Lichtenstein and Switzerland took place during five preparatory meetings. Several international organizations, academic institutions and NGOs provided support to the negotiation process, including the European Academy (EURAC) in Bolzano, Italy, the host of the scientific and operational seat of the Alpine Convention Secretariat. The Framework Convention on the Protection and Sustainable Development of the Carpathians was adopted in Kyiv in May 2003 during the “Environment for Europe” Ministerial Conference.