MINSK, 1 December (BelTA) – Chairman of the International Affairs and National Security Commission of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of Belarus Sergei Rachkov took part in a roundtable session held on 1 December to discuss security-enhancing efforts in the CSTO space in the 15 years since the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO PA) was established, BelTA has learned.
According to the press service of the upper chamber of the Belarusian parliament, participants of the roundtable session discussed the work of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, results of legislative efforts, the model lawmaking program for 2021-2025, the role of public institutions and international organizations in digital security and economic security as well as steps meant to reinforce the collective security system.
In his speech Sergei Rachkov spoke at length about the history of the organization and the main areas of its work.
In his words, the Belarusian delegation has always laid much emphasis on the development of model laws. Major plans in this sphere are stipulated by the program for the 2021-2025 period. The senator said: “It is very important for us to develop these laws relating to information security, cyber security and a number of other regulatory acts, which, as practice indicates, help a lot with the development of the relevant bills in national parliaments.”
Sergei Rachkov also put forward several proposals on ways to improve the work of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. He mentioned the monitoring of the military political situation in the CSTO's responsibility area. In his words, in this period the Belarusian side has welcomed colleagues in the country three times for the sake of studying the military political situation in Eastern Europe. “The situation is getting worse now. Tensions at Belarus' border with the European Union are rising. I am convinced that we, participants of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly should pay close attention to the matter. We should probably reformat some of our plans and programs towards monitoring the military political situation in other subregions of responsibility of our organization,” he said.
A session of the CSTO Collective Security Council took place in Minsk on 23 June 2006. It determined the need to develop the Collective Security Treaty Organization's parliamentary dimension within the framework of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly for the sake of harmonizing the national legislations, for the sake of working out model laws meant to address the CSTO's charter tasks, for the sake of organizing interaction on matters concerning international and regional security. At a session on 16 November 2006 the heads of the parliaments of the CIS countries – CSTO member states passed a resolution on setting up the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. The date is perceived as the day the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization was founded.
