Press release of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
Geneva/Brussels, 1 April 1999
N° 2

At the invitation of the Belgian Federal Parliament, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) will hold its 101st Conference and related meetings from 10 to 16 April in Brussels, on the premises of the European Parliament - a first for the IPU. The Inaugural Ceremony will be held on Sunday, 11 April in the Palais des Congrès in the presence of His Majesty the King of the Belgians.

The following will also take the floor on this occasion: Mr. Jacques Lefèvre (President of the Belgian IPU Group), Mr. Antoni Gutiérrez Diaz (Vice-President of the European Parliament), Mr. Vladimir Petrovsky (Director General of the United Nations Office in Geneva, who will read out a message from Mr. Kofi Annan, UN Secretary-General), Mr. Frank Swaelen (President of the Belgian Senate) and Mr. Miguel Angel Marínez (President of the Inter-Parliamentary Council).

During the debates which will take place at the European Parliament, the representatives of the 136 parliaments affiliated to the IPU and the four associate member regional parliamentary assemblies will consider in particular "Parliamentary action to encourage all countries to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty prohibiting all nuclear testing, to encourage universal and non-discriminatory nuclear non-proliferation measures and to work towards the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons" and "The problem of metropolitan areas: a global challenge to which parliamentarians must respond in terms of urban civilisation and democracy".

The Conference may also add a supplementary item to its agenda (in order to be accepted, a request for a supplementary item must obtain the required two-thirds majority as well as the highest number of positive votes). To date, the following requests for such items have reached the IPU Secretariat:

• "Writing off the Government debt of highly-indebted poor countries", presented by the IPU Group of South Africa.
• "Humanitarian action - challenges facing the international community on the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions", presented by the Norwegian Group.
• "The increasing potential dangers of the production, proliferation and use of weapons of mass destruction by some countries: the contribution of parliaments to the world-wide campaign to ban the production, proliferation, stockpiling and use of weapons of mass destruction", presented by the Group of Kuwait.
• "The lifting of the embargo off Iraq ensures respect for human rights", presented by the Group of Iraq, supported by 11 other Arab Groups and Palestine.
• "Inter-parliamentary contribution to the programmes of the year 2001 as the United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilisations", presented by the Group of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
• " The peaceful resolution of the ongoing conflict between Eritrea and Ethiopia", presented by the Group of Ethiopia.

The Conference also has the possibility of adding to its agenda an emergency supplementary item relating to an event of particular international importance which has occurred in the month before or during the Conference. The Russian Federation Parliament has proposed that "The situation in the Balkans and parliamentarians' role in putting an end to the escalation of the NATO aggression against Yugoslavia and in normalising the situation in the region" be placed on the agenda. To be accepted, such a request must obtain a four-fifths majority of the votes cast.

Within the framework of the general debate on the political, economic and social situation in the work, FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf will give a speech on the morning of Monday, 12 April. That same afternoon, the Belgian Prime Minister, Mr. Jean-Luc Dehaene, will address the some 1000 international delegates (542 MPs, including 118 women MPs, 38 Presiding Officers of Parliaments, 26 Vice-Presidents as well as 40 delegates attending as observers) who have to date announced their participation in the Brussels Conference.

As one of the IPU's objectives is to favour parliamentary diplomacy, the Conferences of the Inter-Parliamentary Union further offer a unique opportunity for private contacts and exchanges of views between MPs - prominent men and women politicians, some of whom come from conflict-beset regions - on thorny bilateral issues.

Several IPU Committee will meet on the fringe of the Conference to tackle such questions as the human rights of parliamentarians (settlement of cases of parliamentarians who are victims of arbitrary measures), security and co-operation in the Mediterranean (CSCM), the situation in Cyprus and that in the Middle East.

Women parliamentarians will also meet in Brussels, on the premises of the European Parliament, on Saturday, 10 April at 9.30 a.m. under the presidency of Mrs. An Hermans, a Member of the Belgian Parliament. Since 1975, the Meeting of Women MPs has been analysing the question of women's participation in politics, given that, more or less throughout the world, women are under-represented in the decision-making process. For the first time, the Meeting of Women MPs will be held as an official body recognised in the IPU's Statutes.

Contacts: Mrs. Luisa Ballin, IPU Information Officer in Geneva: Tel. (4122) 919 41 16 or 919 41 27, e-mail: lb@mail.ipu.org or cd@mail.ipu.org. In Brussels: Mr. Patrick Peremans, Press attaché of the Belgian Senate. Tel: (322) 501 73 37 or 0477 797901, e-mail pp@senate.be

The IPU also has a Liaison Office with the UN in New York: tel.: (1 212) 557 58 80, fax: (1 212) 557 39 54, e-mail: ny-office@mail.ipu.org