Press release, 3 April 2014
Topical EU issues will be addressed by the Conference of Speakers of European Union Parliaments on 6–8 April 2014 at the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania.
In this three-day conference of the highest political level, speakers of EU parliaments will assess the situation in Ukraine, tackle the issues of parliamentary scrutiny of Europol and establishment of European Public Prosecutor’s Office, discuss post-crisis economy and financial situation of the EU and illegal migration problem.
One of the key topics of the conference − interparliamentary cooperation with the Eastern Partnership countries – is directly linked to one of the four priorities of the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the EU. Loreta Graužinienė, Speaker of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, and Solvita Āboltiņa, Speaker of the Saeima of the Republic of Latvia, will be the keynote speakers of the session. Oleksandr Turchynov, acting President of Ukraine, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, who is expected to pay his first official visit to Lithuania and heads of parliaments of other Eastern Partnership countries will make their interventions on the topic. Speakers of parliaments will debate on strategic importance of the Eastern Partnership countries to the EU and entire Europe.
Speakers of EU parliaments intend to discuss more active engagement of national parliaments in the EU legislative process and establishment of the new EU institution, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office, which is subject to considerable debate. These issues will be the focus of the second session of the conference entitled Five years after coming into force of the Treaty of Lisbon: lessons of subsidiarity checks in parliaments.
A lot of attention will be devoted to interparliamentary cooperation in the area of freedom, security and justice. Presentations by heads of the Hellenic and Italian parliaments on illegal migration, possible solutions to the problem and responsibility sharing will be extremely relevant. A debate on how the European Parliament and the national Parliaments should carry out the parliamentary scrutiny of Europol will be also included in the agenda.
The Conference of Speakers should be concluded by adoption of the Presidency conclusions. After the Vilnius conference, Conference of Speakers of EU parliaments will be chaired by the Italian Parliament.
Fifty foreign delegations are expected to arrive to the final and one of the largest parliamentary dimension events of the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. A total of 300 members of parliamentary delegations and guests from EU national Parliaments, the European Parliament, candidate and Eastern Partnership countries are expected to take part in this international event.
More information on the event is available on the website of the parliamentary dimension of the Lithuanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Rimas Rudaitis, Public Relations Unit, Communications Department, Office of the Seimas, tel. +370 5 239 6132, e-mail: [email protected]
