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Joint Parliamentary Meeting on Western Balkans

Joint Parliamentary Meeting on Western Balkans

2011. 04. 20.

During the two days long meeting several members of the national parliaments of the EU Member States and the Western-Balkan states joined the members of the European Parliament. Viktor Orbán, Prime Minister of Hungary and László Kövér, the President of the Hungarian National Assembly was present as well. Ms Kinga Gál, Member of the European Parliament (EPP) participated actively in the debates.
 
Kinga Gál MEP as Vice-chairwoman of the Committee of Civil Liberties and Home Affairs, emphasized the importance of adoption of required laws, and the practical implementation of these legal instruments. She particularly stressed these matters in relation to visa liberalization in the Western Balkans. The liberalization of visas is a positive aspect but the legal requirements should also be properly implemented, otherwise instead of reaching the desired aims, the contrary will be achieved. Furthermore there are problems of implementationregarding jurisdiction, corruption, crime and human trafficking. Another important aspect underlined by Mrs. GAL was that minority rights should be respected as they are one of the political Copenhagen criteria, and adopted minority related laws should be implemented. Programmes related to the peaceful cohabitation of minority and majority should be promoted, because "without respecting each-other it does not work. The young generation of the Western Balkans needs to be guaranteed a new European perspective, since the future of Europe depends of them as well."