Third EaP forum comes off in Lviv with fair accomplishments on hand

Information Department of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Secretariat
24 May 2019, 10:00

"The Eastern Partnership is going up to a new level of cooperation," -- Petro Bodnar, the First Deputy Secretary General of the VRU Secretariat-Chief Manager

 The two-day Third task meeting of secretaries-general of parliamentary administrations of the Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries came off in Lviv, where the First Deputy Secretary General of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Secretariate-Chief Manager Petro Bodnar, the Secretary General of the Georgian Parliament Givi Mikanadze, the Chief of Staff-Secretary General of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia Tigran Galstyan took part.

Participants of the regional network discussed the issue of strengthening the role of EaP parliaments, exchanging experiences and achievements of each country, which could be shared within the framework of regional cooperation.

The Georgian participant Givi Mikanadze suggested joining Poland and Sweden to the network, the states which had been the initiators of the Eastern Partnership project, speaking properly. "The next step is cooperation between the network and secretaries of the Council of Europe," he said. Georgia also offered to strengthen contacts between the parliamentary administrations both bilaterally and multilaterally.

The meeting tasked to consider interaction between the European Parliament and the Eastern Partnership countries is likely to take place in Brussels in 2020.

At the Lviv meeting, there was also presented a website which is primed to cover activities of both the EaP parliaments’ research network and each member state.

The First Deputy Secretary General of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine Secretariate-Chief Manager Petro Bodnar shared the successful projects of the Ukrainian parliament. He firstly said the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine launched electronic document management to ensure greater openness and accountability. Secondly, the Verkhovna Rada created an educational center through which the Parliament would become more open and understandable for all citizens. The Ukrainian first deputy secretary general informed the audience that the collected experience of Britain and other countries was used to introduce the above educational center.

The purpose of the contacts is to create cleared conditions for parliamentary cooperation, which will give the opportunity to present the challenges specific to each country. To this end, the Georgian side has prepared a series of measures to support the cooperation of the network of parliamentary administrations of the Eastern Partnership. The schedule of joint measures of the heads of parliamentary administrations seems to be quite tense. Further meetings and seminars are to be held in Batumi, Berlin, Warsaw, Yerevan and Stockholm before long.

In summary, Petro Bodnar stressed that this is the third working meeting of the secretaries-general of the parliamentary administrations of the Eastern Partnership countries. It has approved a charter for further cooperation and the website to be developed shortly. The most important result was said to be signing of the Lviv Communique and an appeal to other similar networks of the world  which the Eastern Partnership countries are ready to cooperate with.

"We have gathered a task group to exchange experience in reformative processes.  In post-Soviet countries there are very similar problems, and each of them in their own way tries to solve the challenges in question. We are already convinced that the exchange of experience gives very positive results,” emphasized the Ukrainian official of high rank.

*** 3rd Working Meeting of Secretaries General of Parliamentary Administrations of the Eastern Partnership Countries was supported by the Project „Strengthening the Parliamentary Administration in the Eastern Partnership“ of the Eastern Partnership Regional Fund for Public Administration Reform, implemented by Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).