The heads of the parliaments of Cyprus, Egypt and Greece are meeting in Nicosia on Wednesday for their second trilateral meeting, which will focus on peace and stability in the region, energy, and parliamentary cooperation centred on young people.
House President Annita Demetriou will be joined by Hesham Badawy, Speaker of Egypt’s House of Representatives, and Nikitas Kaklamanis, Speaker of the Hellenic Parliament, at the meeting hosted by the House of Representatives. Demetriou will open proceedings, followed by introductory speeches from Badawy and Kaklamanis. The three will adopt a joint declaration at the end of the meeting and then make statements to the media.
The three sessions will cover the role of parliamentary diplomacy and cooperation in building peace and stability in the Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean; energy as a driving force for regional cooperation, and the challenges and opportunities it presents for Cyprus, Egypt and Greece; and the importance of strengthening parliamentary cooperation, with young people at its centre.
Theodora Constantinidou, Director General of the Foreign Ministry, has been invited to speak on behalf of the Foreign Minister, as has Minister of Energy, Commerce and Industry Michalis Damianos. Representatives of the Youth Parliament, the Cyprus Youth Council and the Pancyprian Federation of Student Unions have also been invited to speak.
Cyprus will be represented by Giorgos Karoullas and Nikos Georgiou, chairmen of the House Foreign and European Affairs Committee and the House Energy, Commerce, Industry and Tourism Committee respectively, and Panikos Leonidou, deputy chairman of the House Education and Culture Committee.
Egypt’s delegation includes former foreign minister Sameh Hassan Shoukry and former petroleum and mineral resources minister Tarek El Molla, who head the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee and Energy and Environment Committee respectively, and Tarek Radwan, head of the Human Rights Committee and of the Egypt-Cyprus Friendship Group.
Greek parliament members Eleftherios Ktistakis and Konstantina Giannakopoulou, of the Standing Committee on National Defence and Foreign Affairs, will also attend.
(Information from Cyprus News Agency)
