(17/10/07) Europese Groenen dan toch naar Moskou

• 2007-10-17

Na weken van bureaucratie en een oorspronkelijke weigering mag een delegatie van Europese Groenen nu toch een werkbezoek brengen aan Moskou. Ze zullen er spreken met een keur van vertegenwoordigers uit de politieke, journalistieke en civiele maatschappij.

Green conference in Moscow to go ahead after end of visa row

The Russian ambassador to Belgium Vadim Loukov assured Greens/EFA Co-President Daniel Cohn-Bendit in a phone conversation this morning that Green MEPs and staff will be granted entry visas, which had been initially refused by the Russian authorities, enabling a planned conference in Moscow to go ahead.

The decision of the Russian embassy puts an end to weeks of uncertainty over the visas in which it had looked likely that the conference would have to be cancelled. The conference will now take place as planned from 28-31 October, just after the EU-Russia Summit. It will bring together European Green politicians, Russian opposition leaders (including Grigory Yavlinsky and Garry Kasparov), government representatives, members of civil society and NGOs. A 33 strong Green delegation (including 12 MEPs and national MPs) will participate in the conference.

At the beginning of the conference on Sunday, the Greens/EFA MEPs will lay a wreath at the tomb of Anna Politkovskaya, the assassinated Russian journalist. Topics to be discussed by the conference include Russia-EU relations in the context of foreign policy, the fight against climate change, nuclear waste, human rights, Chechnya and democracy.

The meeting will end with a debate with Russian and foreign journalists on the question of press freedom.