A PAM high-level delegation, led by PAM President Emeritus Sen. Francesco Amoruso of Italy, and composed of Hon. Erdoğan Özegen of Turkey, Hon. Belal Qasem of Palestine, PAM Secretary General Amb. Sergio Piazzi, and PAM Permanent Observer to the UN in Geneva Amb. Gerhard Putman-Cramer, participated and contributed to the 138th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, held in Geneva from 24 to 28 March 2018.
Senator Amoruso intervened in the Plenary Session in his double capacity as IPU and PAM Rapporteur on Migration. In his speech, he recalled the alarming data on the scope of current migratory flows and on its different root causes, which are not only related to armed conflicts and terrorism, but also to climate change, poverty and demographic growth. The PAM President Emeritus also highlighted the main challenges that the Mediterranean region is facing, and referred to the activities carried out by PAM, also in close cooperation with international partners such as the UN and the IPU, in order to tackle this phenomenon, which has reached unprecedented levels, and which will increase exponentially in the future. In his conclusion, he underlined the importance of the process that is taking place at the UN level to reach a Global Compact on migration, and the contribution that PAM and all stakeholders are called to provide to support this initiative.
PAM is very active on the issue of mass migrations. Last November, PAM and the IPU co-organized, together with the Parliament of Malta, a conference dedicated to promoting better regional cooperation towards smart and humane migration across the Mediterranean. Furthermore, PAM recently signed an agreement with the Pan-African Parliament to coordinate a cross regional approach to the phenomenon of irregular migration from Africa to Europe, and the two assemblies will co-organise, next November in Turkey, a dedicated meeting, with the focus on the Mediterranean and the Sahel Regions, preparatory to the December event in Morocco on the adoption of the UN Global Compact.
On the margins of the 138th Assembly of the IPU, the PAM delegates and the Secretary General also held, inter alia, a number of bilateral meetings with other national delegations, the IPU Secretary General, the PACE Secretary General, the Consultative Council of the Maghreb, and the Arab IPU.