The 8th Plenary Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean was inaugurated today in Marseille, France by PAM President, Senator Francesco Amoruso (Italy), PAM Vice-President Hon. Michel Vauzelle (President of Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur Regional Council), and the President of the French National Assembly, H.E. Claude Bartolone, and the President of the French Senate, H.E. Jean Pierre Bel.
More than 200 participants, including parliamentarians from PAM member states, PAM associate countries and organisations, are meeting at the Villa Méditerranée, where PAM is rounding up the activities of 2013.
Speeches for the opening session are herewith included.
Opening Speech
The President
Sen. Francesco Amoruso
(Italy)
It is my pleasure to address today the opening ceremony of the 8th Meeting of the Standing Committees.
I wish to extend my sincere thanks and appreciation to the President of the French Senate, Hon. Jean-Pierre Bel, the President of the National Assembly, Hon. Claude Bartolone, our Vice-President Hon. Michel Vauzelle and the Government of France for the hospitality granted to us.
I also wish to congratulate President Vauzelle on the way he conducted his special assignment conferred by President Hollande, to address the priority issues in the Mediterranean, and I express again my gratitude for the high quality of the document in which he underlined the unique role of PAM in the region.
2013 was a year full of deep changes and incredible challenges. The Arab Spring has permanently transformed the Mediterranean region, and PAM had to adapt its role to this new scenario. As you know, the number and complexity of international crises is growing and changing, so that their impact on many Mediterranean sub-regions is becoming increasingly severe.
Our Assembly was concerned with the persisting effects of the Syrian crisis, the negotiations between Israel and Palestine, the influence of the domestic conflict in Mali on the Maghreb and the tragedies related to migration flows.
PAM has developed its capacity in rapidly responding to these crisis situations. As a result of our efforts, PAM consolidated its role and became an actor of parliamentary diplomacy highly recognized in the Mediterranean and the international sphere.
One month ago, a PAM high-level mission to the UN Headquarters (UNHQ) in New York was instrumental to brief and exchange views with UN Secretary General, UN High Officials and Permanent Representatives to the UN (Russia and Senegal) on the recent developments in the Mediterranean region, following the two PAM missions to Syria and the Middle East. This final mission came as a round-up of a series of initiatives taken by PAM in the last six months.
Our delegation met with UN Senior Officials from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the Alliance of Civilisations (UNAOC) and Amb. Diallo, Chairman of the UN Committee on Palestine and Permanent Representative of Senegal to the UN in New York. We had also the pleasure to meet with Amb. Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to New York, the UN Department of Political Affairs (UNDPA), the UNDP and Mr. Ola Almgren, Director of the New York Office, United Nations – Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons joint mission to Syria.
Briefly I will come back to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Last month, on the 5th of December, during the press conference with the US State Secretary John Kerry, the Israeli Prime Minister, stressed “that Israel is ready for a historic peace, and it’s a peace based on two states for two peoples.” Though, he added “It’s a peace that Israel can and must be able to defend by itself with our own forces against any foreseeable threat”.
On the Palestinian side, a few months earlier, President Mahmoud Abbas, stated that “You have a commitment from the Palestinian people, and also from the leadership, that if we are offered a just agreement, we will sign a peace deal that will put an end to the conflict and to future demands from the Palestinian side”. This represents a further step in the path that leads to a conclusion of the peace process, and I hope that all differences, which we watch on television every day, will be solved with the good will of those concerned.
Later, with the First Standing Committee, we will focus on the Syrian crisis, the 5+5 Parliamentary Diplomacy, the situation of Israel and Palestine, the development of the Western Sahara and the new relations with the Russian delegation.
Furthermore, in the afternoon, our colleague of Morocco, Sen. Lhou Lmarbouh will explain, for the Second Standing Committee, the activities of the PAM Panel on Trade and Investments in the Mediterranean, the collaboration with the EBRD related to the Deauville Partnership, the agenda of the SMEs support and job creation, the energy-related issues and the economic situation in the Region.
Tomorrow morning, our friend Hon. Maria Conceiçao Pereira and her rapporteurs will open the meeting of the Third Standing Committee, during which they will talk about the role of the women in the Arab Spring, the access of people with disabilities to the labour market, the respect of human rights, especially for the refugees in the Mediterranean, and the collaboration between our Assembly and the Anna Lindh Foundation, an NGO we worked with for a long time.
With reference to the tragedy of the sinking of boats laden with migrants seeking a better future, I would like to pay particular attention to the need for our stakeholders, to increase their efforts to prevent similar tragedies from happening again, to fight organized crime that operates these trips of hope – which become too often journeys of death – and to promote a common legislation by all of our members.
This year’s meetings of the Standing Committees and the Plenary Session will be held concurrently for practical and financial reasons. On these grounds, and to avoid two votes on the same documents by the delegates within only a few hours, I would suggest, as it has been discussed this morning with the Bureau, that the vote of today and tomorrow – expressed during the meetings of the Standing Committees – will be considered that of the Assembly. Wednesday will be used by us for a debate on the future strategic activities of the Standing Committees for the two years of work ahead of us.
I would like to point out that all the stages of our formal meetings will be accompanied by the interventions of a series of High-Level speakers.
Additionally, on behalf of our Assembly, today I would like to send the message to the Secretary General of the United Nations, H.E. Ban Ki-Moon, and the Special Envoy of the United Nations and the Arab League on Syria, H.E. Lakhdar Brahimi, to offer participants at the Geneva II International Conference, scheduled to coincide with our Plenary Session, our full and unconditional support for the achievement of a concrete and real peace in Syria.
In addition, on the margin of this meeting, I would also like to meet with the Heads of delegations of the PAM Member States coming from the Western Mediterranean 5 + 5 Dialogue, for a brief exchange of views on the future work. I would also like to make a reference to the message delivered by our former President Fayez Tarawneh at the Plenary Session of Malta, which was followed by my statement to the Presidents of the National Parliaments of the member countries of the Group of South-Eastern Europe, almost all members of the PAM, with the exception of Bulgaria and Moldova.
I would like to remind you that the PAM Secretariat is available to them for the facilitation of the group’s parliamentary dimension, without any financial costs, and without the necessity to create another Secretariat, which bears upon the budget, already severely limited, of National Parliaments.
I wish to express you my highest satisfaction in welcoming you at the VIII meeting of the PAM Standing Committees.
Allow me to add that I’m proud of the work carried out by the Members of the Standing Committees, the Bureau and the Secretariat of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean.