European parliament President Pat Cox has invited Pope John Paul II to address the assembly, and hopes the visit will occur later this year.
Such an address would reflect the Holy Father's vital role in the collapse of communism in the 1980s, starting in his native Poland, at a crucial year for the enlarging European Union, a spokesman for Mr Cox said.
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Mr Pat Cox
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Mr Cox, from Cork, believes that it is "absolutely right to invite him, and more than ever in this year 2003 which is the year of enlargement," his spokesman said.
"It is to some extent the last chapter in a story opened by the pope himself in Poland," he added.
The EU is set to welcome 10 mostly ex-communist states as new members in May 2004.
Mr Cox made the invitation during an audience with the pope at the Vatican after an initiative by Hans-Gert Poettering, head of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), the biggest group in the Strasbourg-based assembly.
AFP