Knesset Speaker Yuli-Yoel Edelstein held on Thursday a first-of-its-kind trilateral meeting in which he hosted the President of the Hellenic Parliament, Nikolas Voutsis, and the President of Cyprus` House of Representatives, Demetris Syllouris.
The public meeting dealt, among other things, with the battle against anti-Semitism and hate crimes, advancing young entrepreneurs and regional cooperation on water-related issues.
At the end of the meeting, the three parliament heads signed a memorandum of understanding to promote mutual issues and to strengthen the ties between the countries. MK Ayelet Nahmias-Verbin (Zionist Camp), who heads the Israel-Greece Parliamentary Friendship Group, also participated in the meeting, as did MK Yael Cohen Paran (Zionist Camp), who spoke of the climate crisis in our region.
Speaker Edelstein said, ”We have begun a tradition of cooperation between the three close allies on a variety of fields. We will establish mutual taskforces which will deal with issues related to innovation, water, agriculture, unemployment and tourism, and we will initiate cooperation between parliamentary committees on education and science. We will also recruit the governments towards this end”.
The President of Cyprus` House of Representatives, Demetris, announced that he will work to recruit additional countries from the region for the purpose of cooperation. ”We will serve as a bridge, and bring practical results on the ground,” he said. Demetris invited the teams for a follow-up meeting in Cyprus.
The President of the Hellenic Parliament, Voutsis, said that one of the most troublesome issues in his country these days is the lack of employment opportunities for some 250,000 scientists with postgraduate education, which forces many of them to leave Greece and seek employment in other countries.
Speaker Edelstein said that the issue of the connection with the Diaspora is close to his heart, and invited his two guests to send representatives to the Diaspora Conference which will be held at the Knesset in March.