Joint Meeting of the Standing Committees of the PABSEC and the BSPC, 2 December 2020
Joint Meeting of the Standing Committees of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation and the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference was held online on 2 December 2020. During the meeting, the following topics were discussed: “Democracy and the COVID-19 Pandemic” and “Safeguarding Our Seas; Climate Change and Biodiversity”. The meeting was attended by the parliamentarians from the PABSEC and the BSPC, as well as experts from international organizations.
Mr. Eldar Guliyev, PABSEC Vice-President and Head of the PABSEC Azerbaijani Delegation, and Mr. Piri Niemi, President of the BSPC (Sweden) addressed the participants at the Opening. The participants stressed the usefulness of holding joint events and exchanging experience and information on various topical issues in the Baltic and Black Sea regions.
During the first session on “Democracy and the COVID-19 Pandemic” chaired by the Mr. Piri Niemi, President of the BSPC, the speeches were made by Ms. Ann Linde, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, and Mr. Cemal Ozturk, Head of the PABSEC Turkish Delegation. The members of parliaments from the BSPC and the PABSEC spoke about the pandemic situation in their countries and exchanged experience of parliamentary work during the Pandemic.
Within the framework of the second session on “Safeguarding Our Seas; Climate Change and Biodiversity”, chaired by Mr. Simeon Kedikoglu, PABSEC Vice-President, Head of the PABSEC Hellenic Delegation, presentations were made by the experts: Ms. Irina Makarenko, representative of the Permanent Secretariat of the Commission on the Protection of the Black Sea Against Pollution, Mr. Christoph Humborg, Scientific Director of the Stockholm University Baltic Sea Centre, and Ms. Cecilie Tenfjord-Toftby, Chair of the BSPC Working Group on Climate Change and Biodiversity.
In the concluding part of the Meeting the speeches were made by Mr. Constantin-Catalin Zamfira (Romania), Chairman of the PABSEC Economic, Commercial, Technological and Environmental Affairs Committee, and Mr. Piri Niemi (Sweden), President of the BSPC. The importance of holding joint events between the two Assemblies was stressed. It was also decided to continue the practice of organizing joint meetings in the future.