Colleagues!
Over the year, the Parliamentary Assembly has worked in line with seven priorities of the Russian CSTO chairmanship, outlined by Russian President Vladimir V. Putin. First of all, this is the formation of legal conditions for the safe and stable development of the member states of the organization in accordance with the CSTO Collective Security Strategy until 2025.
The priority issues of the Parliamentary Assembly are the convergence and harmonization of national legislations. We should find common solutions to strengthen the collective security system within the CSTO, based on the model lawmaking. Taking into account the current agenda, the legislative portfolio of the Assembly will contain 69 model acts. 35 of them have been developed in accordance with the program of activities of the Parliamentary Assembly for convergence and harmonization of national legislations of the CSTO member states for 2016–2020, which we are accomplishing.
The draft lawmaking program for the next five years, which we have developed this year and plan to adopt today, contains 29 model acts. It includes the proposals of the parliaments of the CSTO member states on legislative regulation of digital, economic security, information protection, countering terrorism, extremism and organized criminal activities.
These are model laws, such as ”On protection of critical information infrastructure facilities“, ”On information protection and cybersecurity“. As well as, it includes recommendations for the development of common principles for creating artificial intelligence and robotics, Internet regulations, formation and use of big data. This is very important for the further development of our cooperation and to solve the tasks set by the CSTO Collective Security Council.
We should protect together the digital sovereignty of our states, resist attempts to interfere in internal affairs, including information and political processes. We proceed from the fact that the CSTO PA program of activities should meet the requirements of the time. Today, new challenges appear that may require changes to the program. It is important for us to analyze and monitor the situation; in case it is necessary, we will amend the lawmaking plan. This is a living document, it should respond to modern realities.
Colleagues!
One of the most important tasks of the Parliamentary Assembly is to promote ratification of treaties signed by the heads of our states within the CSTO framework. In 2020, the member states reported on the implementation of domestic procedures required for the entry into force of five international legal acts adopted by the organization. At the same time, it should be noted that four out of 56 treaties are still being ratified in some states.
It is also necessary to do everything to implement the decision of the Collective Security Council on the formation of a single list of organizations recognized as terrorist. We discussed this issue at our previous meetings. This is very important for the implementation of the priority issue related to increasing the CSTO's capabilities to combat international terrorism.
The special services of the CSTO member states will have the opportunity to enhance their cooperation. And most importantly, we will close legislative gaps as an organization recognized as terrorist in one of the CSTO member states, is able to operate in other state.
Another area of our joint work is legislative support for combating drug trafficking. Today we plan to consider the Recommendations for the formation of common approaches of the CSTO member states related to state registration of new psychoactive substances. The adoption of these decisions will help to combat together terrorism and drug trafficking.
An important priority of the Russian chairmanship is the improvement of the crisis response system and information interaction with the authorized governing bodies of the CSTO member states.
Colleagues!
I would like to emphasize the need to strengthen cooperation within the CSTO PA framework and to establish partnerships with international organizations. Additional opportunities for increasing the efficiency of the Parliamentary Assembly are provided by the granting of observer and partner statuses in the CSTO. Coordination of actions of parliamentary delegations of the CSTO member states in international organizations is really important and helps to strengthen our inter-parliamentary cooperation.
We still need to do a lot in this direction to promote and defend our agenda more effectively.
Thank you for your attention.
