“Chamber” Not Invited to PACE :: Charter'97 :: News

“The National Assembly” of Belarus was denied the status of specially invited to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. This decision was made by the PACE Office on January 30 in Strasbourg, where the regular session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly took place. The letter of inquiry of the “national assembly” of Belarus about conferring a special guest status was discussed at different levels in Strasbourg, in committees, factions, at the sitting of the presidential committee. And in all cases, with rare exception, the common opinion was that Belarus cannot become the member of this organization.

“The OSCE Bureau considers that it is too early to give back the status of the special guest to the country”, said the PACE chairman Peter Shieder in his interview to BelaPAN news agency. “But we do not stop contacts with this country. We are to send our missions there, we shall send our observers to parliamentary elections. I would like to underline that proper organization of the latter would play a crucial part in our relations with Belarus in the future”.