During the Thursday's plenary, former foreign minister Audronius Azubalis and MPs Egidijus Vareikis and Kestutis Masiulis announced plans of setting up a parliamentary group, urging colleagues to sign up for the group. The group is planned to hold its first meeting on April 3.
„Belarus is our neighbor, and it is our vital interest to see democratic processes there, we have to encourage them,“ Masiulis told BNS.
In his words, it is impossible to form an interparliamentary group with the Belarusian parliament, as it does not have recognition of many countries. The proposed group would serve as moral support to democratic forces of Belarus, he said.
The initiative drew an angry reaction from the ruling center-left bloc.
„We already have a group with the Belarusian parliament, there is a chairman, it has been announced and registered. What will we look like here? Does Belarus have a second parliament, which has been recognized? I think the second group shouldn't be registered,“ said Bronius Bradauskas, a member of the ruling Social Democratic Party who heads the existing group for interparliamentary relations with Belarus.
