Events

Deputy Chair of the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev meets with Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Martin Chungong

The discussion included preparations for the Fifth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament to take place in Vienna in September of this year.


Deputy Chair of the Federation Council Konstantin Kosachev held talks with Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Martin Chungong.

The participants discussed preparations for the Fifth World Conference of Speakers 

of Parliament to take place in Vienna in September of this year. They focused on the programme, agenda, and organisational issues of the Russian delegation’s participation.

The Inter-Parliamentary Union has traditionally held meetings for the speakers of the world’s parliaments every five years. The last conference, scheduled for 2020, was suspended due to the pandemic. Last year Russian senators took part in a discussion of experts via videoconference.

The previous, Fourth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament took place in New York in 2015. However, due to the unconstructive position of the American authorities it was decided to hold the following meeting of the world’s leading MPs in Vienna. Using a far-fetched pretext, the US authorities denied the Chair of the Federation Council, Valentina Matvienko, the right to take part in the conference, thereby flagrantly violating their commitments as a host country for international agencies. At that point, the Federation Council made a decision of principle to not send the Russian delegation to New York. During the conference, the participants saw a video address with the speaker of the upper chamber of the Russian Parliament, which was organised with support from the IPU.

Mr Kosachev believes that in this context it is very important to ensure a high level of Russian participation at the Fifth Conference, which will take place exclusively with personal attendance. Russian MPs want to inform the world’s parliamentary leaders about Russia’s position on key international issues.

“I would like to mention the very constructive approach of the IPU’s leaders. They are confident that the Russian MPs participation will be an important contribution to the discussion of the major issues that concern all of humanity and will be included on the agenda of the Fifth Conference in Vienna,” emphasised the Federation Council Deputy Speaker.