AN EXEMPLE OF RECONCILIATION

From left to right : Mr R. Del Picchia (France) and Mr N. Lammert (Germany)

At the 110th Assembly of the IPU, more than 600 parliamentarians from 122 countries adopted a resolution on Promoting international reconciliation, helping to bring stability to regions of conflict, and assisting with post-conflict reconstruction.

The Assembly called on "parliaments to support the intergovernmental structures, mechanisms and processes that promote stabilisation, reconciliation and peaceful development at regional and subregional level, and to enhance their parliamentary dimension", and requested that "the IPU establish committees to foster dialogue among MPs in cases where peace and reconciliation processes fail to work".

As a concrete example of reconciliation, and for the first time in the history of the IPU Assembly, two delegations took the floor jointly: those of France and Germany. The Mexico City Assembly was held nearly two months before the commemoration of D-Day, on 6 June 2004, where French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder confirmed the commitment of their countries to work together, and never again to wage war against one another.

The head of the German delegation, Mr Norbert Lammert, acknowledged that it was indeed exceptional in the general debate of the IPU Assembly for two delegations to take the floor jointly, but said that the German and French delegations wanted to take part in the discussion on reconciliation and partnership with a single address. He explained that there were two reasons for this: first, the past; and second, the future.

He went on to state that "for decades and centuries, the history of the two countries and the European continent had not been one of freedom, cooperation and friendship. The Europe of the 19^th and the fist half of the 20^th centuries, with young and brazen national States defending their respective national interests not with each other, but against one another, was a dramatic example of the impasse where national rivalries and nationalism could lead. The "traditional hostility" between France and Germany over generations resulted in the loss of countless lives, homes and property, and at the same time prevented European unification."

Senator Robert del Picchia, the head of the French delegation, explained that "the very first condition for the reconciliation was the defeat of 1945 and the acceptance of all of its consequences. It was of course a defeat for Hitler's Germany, which was conquered, but it was also a defeat for France, whose economy was left in a shambles, even if thanks to Charles de Gaulle and Winston Churchill, France was among the countries that won the war."

He went on to say that "this defeat, which left both countries in ruins, allowed them to accept one another for what they were, and to repudiate their imperial visions in favour of a more fair view of their situation. After two world wars, the people and their elected representatives were acutely aware of the disaster that they had just been through. We think that such a condition for reconciliation exists in many of today's conflicts as well."