Brussels – The European Parliament will address three issues related to Ukraine during this plenary session in Strasbourg on April 15-18 - MEPs will discuss the situation with the LGBT community in Ukraine on Tuesday, vote on the recommendations to the EU Council on visa agreement with Ukraine on Thursday, and discuss a report of the monitoring mission lead by the ex-presidents, Pat Cox and Alexander Kwasniewski, on the same day.
The situation with the LGBT community in Ukraine was not previously on the agenda and was included at the initiative of the Liberals at the April 11 meeting of the Conference of Presidents, the working body of the European Parliament.
The reason for putting this issue on the agenda was a bill on the prohibition of propaganda on homosexual relationships among children drafted by MP Vadym Kolesnichenko of the Party of Regions and registered in the Ukrainian parliament on April 2.
The European Parliament’s recommendations to the European Council concerning the facilitation of the issuance of visas to Ukrainians will be put on vote on Thursday, April 18. The author of the report is a British MEP Claude Moraes (Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats).
In the draft report, the European Parliament recommends the Council should sign the agreement introducing amendments to the visa facilitation agreement between Ukraine and the EU, which was ratified by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine on March 22 and signed by the president signed on April 8.
On the same day, April 18, the European Parliament will hear a report from its monitoring mission, lead by former European Parliament President Pat Cox and former President of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski as a part of a meeting of the Conference of Presidents.
Sources say that the work of the mission will be extended until September, as it achieved a significant result – the decision of President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych to pardon Ukraine’s convicted former interior minister, Yuriy Lutsenko.
The mission’s report is likely to be positive.
The Conference of Presidents will be held behind closed doors. It is expected that at the end of the meeting a joint press conference of President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz, Cox and Kwasniewski will take place.
