Moldovan parliament speaker attends meeting of BSEC council of foreign ministers

Chisinau, 18 June /MOLDPRES/- Parliament Speaker Andrian Candu today participated in a meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), the parliament's communication and media relations department has reported.

Moldova hosts the event, on the occasion of BSEC chairmanship-in-office held in January-June 2015; Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign and European Integration Minister Natalia Gherman chairs the organisation as acting head of the Council of Ministers.

In a message given to the participants in the meeting, the speaker touched upon Moldova's priorities within the BSEC chairmanship. Candu underlined importance of strengthening cooperation between the member states of the organisation, to develop more economic projects for the benefit of citizens.

"Moldova focused on facilitation of commerce in the region, improvement of transport infrastructure and health care conditions. In our opinion, the three sectors are essential for the future structure of the BSEC economic mission", Candu said. He added that BSEC needed more visibility to have make progress.

The speaker said that adoption of a project-oriented vision was the best way to ensure sustainable development of cooperation in the Black Sea region.

Candu also referred to the importance of strengthening cooperation between the executive and parliamentary dimension of the organisation. "During all these years, the BSEC Parliamentary Assembly provided wide support to executive dimension, focusing on adopting recommendations meant to facilitate implementation of projects initiated at governmental level and will continue playing an important role to this end," he said.

In the context, the speaker asked the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation to back the declaration on consolidation of the BSEC PA statute, passed at the 45th session of the Parliamentary Assembly, hosted by the Moldovan parliament on 8-10 June.

Today Moldova is going to convey the BSEC chairmanship, according to the rotation principle, to Romania. The next session of BSEC will be held in Bucharest on 27-28 November.

The Black Sea Economic Cooperation, set up in 1992, includes 12 member states - Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey, Serbia and Ukraine.

(Editor M. Jantovan)