NA Chairman’s Europe trip promotes role of parliamentary diplomacy

Hanoi (VNA) - National Assembly (NA) Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue’s freshly concluded trip to Europe has helped promote the role of parliamentary diplomacy in boosting socio-economic development and bettering COVID-19 prevention and control, Chairman of the NA Committee for External Relations Vu Hai Ha told the Vietnam News Agency's reporter.

Hue arrived in Hanoi on September 12, concluding his trip to attend the 5th World Conference of Speakers of Parliament (WCSP5) in Austria and pay a working visit to the European Parliament, Belgium and an official visit to Finland from September 5-11.

While in Austria, besides multilateral activities, the top legislator delivered important speeches at WCSP5 plenary and thematic sessions, showing Vietnam's stance on international and regional issues as well as its development orientations.

He had 10 sidelines bilateral meetings with important partners such as Russia, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Italy, Mozambique, Cuba, Chile and the UK, during which they discussed measures to achieve post-pandemic socio-economic recovery as soon as possible.

Hue also met with leaders of several United Nations agencies in Vienna who all affirmed that parliament plays an important role in addressing global challenges.

During his trip, the NA Chairman also had meetings with the Presidents of the European Council (EC) and the European Parliament (EP), and leaders of Belgium and Finland.

They all emphasized that the parliamentary relationship is a very important channel, representing the will and aspirations of people, as well as promoting cooperation between governments and connecting solidarity and friendship among the peoples.

The EP President applauded Hue’s proposal to establish a mechanism to strengthen the relationship between the EP and the National Assembly of Vietnam.

Regarding vaccine diplomacy, Ha said that the President of the European Council promised to provide an additional 500 million doses of vaccines against COVID-19 to ASEAN countries, including Vietnam, in the coming time.

Belgium and Slovakia also presented 200,000 doses of vaccine and pledged to help transfer millions of doses to Vietnam. Many organizations, businesses and individuals also supported medical equipment and supplies, especially COVID-19 test kits, with a total value of 1.028 trillion VND (45.1 million USD). In addition, a number of contracts related to test kit production, and vaccine research and production have been signed.

Ha also stated that this trip was a very good opportunity for the top legislator to discuss with overseas Vietnamese about policies related to them, affirming that the overseas Vietnamese community is an integral part of Vietnam./.