Hon. Antonio Pedro Roque da Visitação Oliveira (Portugal) is the new President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean for the 2017-2018 biennium. Hon. Roque, together with a new Bureau, was unanimously elected during the 11th Plenary Session of PAM, held in Porto, Portugal, on 23-24 February 2017.
The Portuguese parliamentarian has been, along the years, a very active member of the Portuguese delegation to PAM, and has always dedicated time and energy to promote and support the initiatives of the Assembly both within its own events and likewise at a number of high level events organised by international organisations close to PAM’s mission and vision.
Recently, Hon. Roque, inter alia, represented PAM at the Parliamentary Workshop of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, USA, as well as at the High-level seminar on Economic Diaspora Mobilisation in the Mediterranean in Beirut, Lebanon. He was also a member on the PAM delegations visiting New York, on a mission to the Middle East and also with the PAM Observation Team for the Jordanian elections.
In the Portuguese Parliament, Hon. Roque is a member of the Standing Committee on Social Security and Labour, and the National Defence Standing Committee, where he is the parliamentary group coordinator.
In his closing remarks at the Plenary Session in Porto, Hon. Roque expressed his compliments to the outgoing President, H.E. Sen. Lhou Lmarbouh (Morocco), for his commitment towards PAM, which contributed in increasing PAM’s importance and visibility. With a critical eye over the region, Hon. Roque insisted on the common values uniting the Mediterranean countries and highlighted that the challenges are similar to all the populations of the region. The migration phenomenon needs to be addressed with a new philosophy and common solutions, with the concrete participation of all the Euro-Mediterranean countries, must be sought with urgency, in order to avoid further deaths in the Mediterranean Sea. He also reaffirmed PAM’s position regarding the two state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process and augured that the reunification process of Cyprus could once again achieve a solid momentum in the negotiations. PAM, he concluded, is the forum where member parliaments work together for development and peace in the Mediterranean, and during his presidency, he will remain committed to further strengthen PAM’s role in the region.