News

On September 15, 2010, the Parliamentary Forum of the Community of Democracies will convene in Washington, DC for its third meeting to commemorate the International Day of Democracy and to follow up on discussions that it had earlier this year in Vilnius and Krakow on the status of democracy across the world. The event is being organized by President of the Parliamentary Forum of the Communities and Democracies and Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Parliament of Lithuania Emanuelis Zingeris and long-time member of the U.S. House of Representatives Lincoln Diaz-Balart. The Forum will be held under the auspices of the Lithuanian presidency of the Community of Democracies

and will host democracy and human rights activists from the U.S., the EU, Latin America, Eastern Europe and other regions. Among them: Speaker of Parliament of Lithuania Irena Degutiene, Speaker of Parliament of Georgia David Bakradze, Speaker of Parliament of Moldova Mihail Ghimpu, Deputy Marshal of the Senate of Poland Zbigniew Romaszewski, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Israel Avigdor Liberman, Chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Rep. Howard L. Berman, Members of the European Parliament Vytautas Landsbergis and Michał Tomasz Kamiński and many others. 
During the opening session, the Forum will connect via video-link the European Parliament in Brussels from where President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek and other MEPs will joint the discussion on democracy building.
Parliamentarians will analyze development of democracy around the world and will share their experience of parliamentary work with transition countries and pro-democratic groups in Latin America and Eastern Europe. 
Established in March 2010 in Vilnius, Lithuania, the Parliamentary Forum of the Community of Democracies unites parliamentarians from 18 countries who aim to foster the ideas of democracy, human rights and freedom.