100 Speakers of Parliament Meet in Vienna
Over 100 speakers of parliament met at the Austria Center Vienna for the Fifth World Conference of the Speakers of Parliament. President of the Austrian National Council Wolfgang Sobotka spoke about the international community finding internal solutions to global problems. Duarte Pacheco and Martin Chungong, the President and Secretary-General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), defended democracy and human rights and spoke about the robustness of parliaments during the COVID-19 crisis.
President of Austrian National Council Wolfgang Sobotka: "The international community is looking for international solutions when it has identified a global problem." / Picture: © Parlamentsdirektion / Johannes Zinner
Over 100 speakers of parliament met at the Austria Center Vienna for the Fifth World Conference of the Speakers of Parliament. The event included roughly 800 participants from all over the world. The focus of the conference was on the parliamentary dialogue to create an effective multilateralism that should ensure peace and sustainable development for people and the planet.
The conference, which has taken place every five years since the first one in 2000, was organized by the Austrian Parliament in cooperation with the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the United Nations (UN). Together with IPU President Duarte Pacheco and IPU Secretary-General Martin Chungong, the President of the Austrian National Council Wolfgang Sobotka underlined the importance of parliamentary cooperation in order to meet global challenges.
Sobotka: The international community is looking for international solutions to global problems
For National Council President Sobotka, the conference sends two important signals. “The international politics of the parliaments is back in presence,” he said happily. People are coming together and walking a common path where parliaments can be heard in public. Moreover, he said, “this shows that the international community is looking for international solutions when it has identified a global problem. The rapid development of vaccines against the coronavirus is an example that gives courage to look for common solutions to other problems as well.”
The Austrian Parliament is particularly proud to have been selected as the first national parliament to host the conference, said Sobotka. Sobotka acknowledged that the pandemic is not over, but he asserted that, after a year and a half, we should be able to hold an international conference. “The conference should also be a calling card for the country and invite the world to come to Austria and Vienna,” said Sobotka.
Pacheco: IPU defends democracy and human rights
IPU President Duarte Pacheco was also pleased that the first global meeting of parliamentarians since the beginning of the pandemic was able to take place. He said it shows that parliaments work and cooperate to find solutions to the global problems of humanity. Pacheco also stressed that the IPU stands for the defense of democracy and the human rights of parliamentarians. In this context, he addressed the situations in Myanmar, Afghanistan and Venezuela. He assured that the IPU stands behind the parliamentarians of these countries. “We are sometimes the last hope for them,” said Pacheco.
Chungong: Parliaments have proven to be robust during the crisis
The Secretary-General of the IPU, Martin Chungong, also spoke of major challenges for the international community. However, he said, democracies and parliaments have shown that they are resilient. Especially in the Corona crisis, he said, parliaments had shown themselves to be robust. But Chungong warned that democracies cannot be taken for granted, referring to crises in some states. “The parliamentary community is also called upon to address the climate crisis, and the perspective of women must always be brought in to achieve better results,” stated Chungong.