The Council members adopted measures concerning the reform of the IPU. The new Assembly of the world organisation of parliaments, which replaces the present Conference, will meet twice a year and will be composed of a "Standing Committee on Peace and International Security", a "Standing Committee on Sustainable Development, Finance and Trade", and a "Standing Committee on Democracy and Human Rights". Chilean Senator Sergio Páez thus becomes the President of the IPU.

The Council also decided to recommend an inter-parliamentary process for the WTO to evolve around regular parliamentary meetings held initially once a year and on the occasion of WTO Ministerial Conferences. IPU and the European Parliament will organise a parliamentary meeting in conjunction with the next WTO Ministerial Conference, scheduled to take place in September 2003 in Cancún (Mexico).

The IPU Council appointed a French MP, Mr. Rudy Sales, as Chair of the Coordinating Committee and the CSCM process for a two-year period. It also accepted in principle, the proposal of Greece to host the Fourth Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean, due to take place in Athens in 2004, on the eve of the Olympic Games. Also raised was the question of the establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly of Mediterranean States.

The IPU Committee on Middle East Questions elected a Norwegian MP, Mr. Finn Martin Vellarsnes, as President. It also regretted that, due to the elections to the Knesset held in Israel on 28 January 2003, a meeting between legislators from the Knesset and the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), that was due to be organised at IPU Headquarters in Geneva in December 2003, had been postponed. The Committee members asked the IPU to relaunch that initiative, with the support of the Swiss Inter-Parliamentary Group and the Manifesto – Movement for a Just and Lasting Peace in the Middle East.

The 109th IPU Assembly and Related Meetings will take place in Geneva from 29 September to 3 October 2003. The items on the agenda will be: "The role of parliaments in assisting multilateral organisations in ensuring peace and security and in building an international coalition for peace"; "Global public goods: a new challenge for parliaments"; and "The contribution of new information and communication technologies to good governance, the improvement of parliamentary democracy and the management of globalisation".

The IPU, which has permanent observer status at the UN with the right to distribute its official documents, will organise the Second Conference of Presiding Officers of National Parliaments in 2005. The first such event took place at UN Headquarters in New York, in conjunction with the Millennium Assembly, in the year 2000.