Azerbaijan passes PABSEC presidency to Bulgaria
By Nigar Orujova
The presidency in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation was transferred from Azerbaijan to Bulgaria as the two-day 40th plenary session of PABSEC ended in the Azerbaijani capital Baku on Wednesday.
PABSEC President, Azerbaijani Parliament Speaker Ogtay Asadov handed over a special sign symbolizing presidency in the organization to his Bulgarian counterpart Tsetska Tsacheva.
The term of the rotating PABSEC presidency is six months.
The next, 41st PABSEC plenary session will take place in the Bulgarian city of Varna, on May 21-23, 2013, Asadov said. According to him, the meeting will discuss issues including coordination of search and rescue operations in the Black Sea region, cooperation of the BSEC countries on postgraduate education, etc.
Bulgaria while heading PABSEC will work on settlement of conflicts in the region, Tsacheva said while accepting the PABSEC presidency from Azerbaijan.
"We must strive to develop economic cooperation and resolve existing conflicts in the region because these conflicts concern all of us and impede our cooperation," Tsacheva said.
She stressed that all the outlined objectives were achieved at the PABSEC General Assembly session in Baku.
Tsacheva said that BSEC is the only organization in the region which can speed up cooperation between the regional countries and the process of integration.
"I hope the organization will continue its efforts to achieve its objectives and operate more effectively during Bulgaria's presidency. Using the potential of member states' cooperation, we will achieve more effective cooperation during the Bulgarian presidency."
Improvement of social welfare, culture and education issues were discussed on the second day of the PABSEC plenary meeting.
Deputy chair of the Ukrainian delegation to PABSEC Lilia Grigorovich said the social security system eases the impact of the economic crises upon some persons and, in general, upon families.
"The social security system plays an important role of social and economic stabilizer and does not allow reduction of the quality of human capital during a crisis," Grigorovich said.
She stressed that the BSEC member states have recently launched comprehensive reforms in the social security system, both applying development of existing schemes and using new ones.
Head of the Turkish PABSEC delegation, Ismail Safi, at a press conference following the General Assembly session pointed out the high-level economic relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey.
"About 300 Azerbaijani and Turkish representatives, working in the economic field, signed about 1,000 contracts during the PABSEC meeting in Baku," he said. "Other BSEC member states may join this cooperation and benefit from it."
He stressed that the development of the ties among BSEC countries can have a positive impact on regional development as a whole.
BSEC was established on June 25, 1992, on the basis of the Istanbul Summit Declaration and the Bosphorus Agreement signed by 11 heads of state. The key objective of the organization is to support multilateral political and economic initiatives in the Black Sea region. The organization comprises 13 countries.