EU parliamentary delegation visits Syria
Regional-European Union, Politics, 6/5/2003

A delegation representing the European parliament will be visiting Damascus from Sunday June 8th through June 11th, 2003. Members of the delegation will have meetings with the Speaker of the Syrian people's Assembly (PA), Naji Otari, with Syria's Vice President, Abdul Halim Khaddam, the prime minister Mustafa Miro; the foreign minister, Farouk al-Shara, Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade, Ghassan Rifaee, the assistant secretary general of the Baath Party Abdullah al-Ahmar as well as with personalities of the business community and the civil society.

They 22- member delegation will visit the Syrian- European- Business Center SEBC, participate in the inauguration of the EU Funded Cultural Heritage Training program and the Cultural Tourism development program centers and will also take part in a seminar on inter- religious dialogue to be held in Maloula, Damascus countryside.

The mission, led by Sami Nair, chairman of the delegation for relations with the Mashreq and the Gulf states at the European Parliament, is composed among others of Jorge Salvador Herandez ( Vice chairman); Danielle Auroi; Emma Bonino; Philip Bushill Maththews; Michael L.M. Dary; Veronique De Keyser; Jim Fitzsimons; Juan Andres Naranjo Escobar and Jannis Sakellariou.

The visit takes place at an important political juncture in the Middle East region. The delegation members will discuss with the Syrian side latest developments in the ME peace process and the overall EU- Syrian relationships.

The visit is the 6th European Ð Syrian inter-parliamentary meeting following the visit of the Syrian parliamentary delegation to Strasbourg, led then by Speaker of the Syrian parliament Abdul Qader Qaddoura in November 2002.

However, this visit of the EU parliamentary delegation to Syria is the first in 18 years.

The European parliament represents, in the words of the 1957 Treaty of Rome, "the people of the states brought together in the European Community." Some 375 million European citizens in 15 countries are now involved in the process of European integration through their 626 representatives in the European parliament. The first direct elections to the European parliament were held in June 1979. Only 34 years after the end of the Second World War, the people of the nations of Europe, once torn apart by war, went to the polls to elect the members of a single parliament. Europeans could have advised no more powerful symbol of reconciliation.

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