The parliamentary dimension of the Italian Presidency of the Council in the second half of 2014 will include a number of meetings hosted by the Italian Parliament and attended by national and European MPs.

Some such meetings are regularly held every six months or once a year, while others are convened by the Presidency parliament.

The following events fall into the first group:

· COSAC (Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs of EU Parliaments), which holds a meeting of its chairpersons and a plenary meeting every six months;

· The Inter-Parliamentary Conference on the Common Foreign and Security Policy and the Common Security and Defence Policy;

· the Inter-Parliamentary Conference established under Article 13 of the so-called Fiscal Compact;

· the Conference of the Speakers of EU Parliaments, to be held in the first half of 2015 after the meeting of Secretaries General of EU Parliaments.

The sectoral meetings organised by the Italian Parliament will focus on the following topics:

· employment, growth and innovation;

· fundamental rights;

· agriculture, industrial development and SMEs.

The activities organised by the Italian Parliament are in line with a declaration on parliamentary cooperation in the framework of the respective Presidencies, signed on 7 April 2014 by the Presidents of the two Houses of the Italian Parliament and of the Parliaments of Latvia and Luxembourg.

Italy will be the first member of the Trio including Latvia (first semester of 2015) and Luxembourg (second semester of 2015) holding the Council Presidency under the Lisbon Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The goal of the Trio is to ensure continuity and consistency in the Council's work over a period of 18 months.