“We are open to discussion of any issues. Nobody is interrupted here, no one is deprived of the right to vote, and nobody is forced to pay. Each delegation comes and lives at its own expense but there are no contributions and bureaucracy. There is more air that's why people are coming here,” Viacheslav Volodin
Vyacheslav Victorovich
The Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the eighth convocation. Elected in single mandate constituency № 163 (Saratov constituency - Saratov Oblast)
told parliamentary journalists on the sidelines of the 2nd International Forum “Development of Parliamentarism”.
He also stressed that at the Forum, parliamentarians come up with concrete proposals, which cannot be found in most parliamentary structures.
“We don’t have apparatus to finance, as, for example, in PACE, where contributions amount to tens of millions of euros, and the apparatus dominates the parliamentarians' corps,” said Viacheslav Volodin.
“We want national parliaments and inter-parliamentary structures to be more effective, to hear people’s opinions better and reflect them, so that country’s opinions could be represented more effectively on the inter-parliamentary platform,” he added.
Viacheslav Volodin emphasized that last year when the topic of the Forum was announced, “there were many doubters whether the development of parliamentarism was really interesting”.
“However many inter-parliamentary structures have become just a place for meetings. And this leads no more than to parliamentary tourism, people come, meet, but what is the result of these meetings?” asked the Chairman of the State Duma.
According to Viacheslav Volodin, “the other extreme is politicization, political statements that are of no interest to anyone and, moreover, do not reflect the request of the participating countries, and as a result, we get an empty agenda that is interesting to individual political forces for which it is made.”
The Chairman of the State Duma stressed that “these both discredit the very idea of parliamentary democracy because parliament is a place where important issues should be discussed.”
According to him, these are, in particular, the issues of global security, the fight against terrorism and the formation of unified legislation so that terrorist organizations in various countries could not evade responsibility.
The Chairman of the State Duma called the digital economy as another topic that brings countries together.
The 2nd International Forum ”Development of Parliamentarism“ is held on the initiative of the State Duma on July 1–3. This year, representatives of 132 states came to the Forum. About 800 experts and parliamentarians, including 14 international parliamentary organizations, take part in the events. 41 speakers representing the national parliaments take part in the Forum. This is twice as much as a year ago when only 19 chairmen of parliaments took part in the Forum.
