#Romania2019.eu/ Melescanu: EU Council Romanian Presidency, desire to cooperate directly with DEVE and AFET

AGERPRES special correspondent Tudor Martalogu reports: The message we wanted to convey to the European Parliament Committees on Development (DEVE) and Foreign Affairs (AFET) is our desire to cooperate directly with these committees which are within our scope of activity, on any topic that concerns the European Union, in the light of our priorities, Foreign Affairs Minister Teodor Melescanu said on Tuesday after the successive presentation of the program of the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the EU in front of the members of the two committees of the European Parliament.

"We had in the morning a first meeting in the Committee on Development of the European Parliament on the issues of humanitarian assistance and Romania's contribution, on how we intend to carry out our activity in this area. At noon we had in the same committee a discussion on Romania's contribution to the assistance for the development of other countries in our area, in the African area and other continents, and in the afternoon (I presented) the priorities for the European Union's foreign policy in AFET, which is at our Senate level, about 147 members," the head of Romanian diplomacy said.

According to the Romanian official, a question he was asked by a British MEP on Tuesday referred to Brexit.

"I said very clearly that we are one of the countries that regrets the decision the UK has adopted. Secondly, I said that we want a predictable and orderly withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the EU, and that our goal is to find ways to keep the UK as close to the EU as possible, especially on defense and security matters, on foreign policy issues and others. I also referred to the fact that we have since 2003 a strategic partnership with the UK and that, once things are clear with their legal situation, we intend to develop this strategic partnership between Romania and the United Kingdom," the Romanian Minister mentioned, pointing out that the concrete problem to be solved is for the EU to know very clearly what the UK wants. AGERPRES (RO - author: Tudor Martalogu, editor: Mariana Ionescu; EN - author: Simona Iacob, editor: Bogdan Gabaroi)