Global Parliamentary Congress The Future of the World concluded its work with the adoption of a joint statement

Press release, 13 May 2023

 

The keynote speakers and panellists at Plenary Session 3 Leveraging Lon-Term Solutions of the global parliamentary forum The Future of the World focused on the role of parliaments and their responsibility in responding to the major challenges to the world’s development to facilitate human resilience, sustainability, and technological progress. The Congress concluded its work by adopting a joint statement.

 

Mr Virginijus Sinkevičius, Member of the European Commission, being the keynote speaker of the Plenary Session, focused on the Green Deal and green transition in the context of current and future problems. He noted that the recent challenges, which include the climate change, pandemics, and Russia’s war against Ukraine among others, represented a tough test to the post-World War II international order, the supply chains, businesses, and many people across the world. The Commissioner, however, was convinced that some threats, such as climate change, could be tackled.

 

‘I often hear that if we implement a Greed Deal, if we implement a green transition, there is going to be huge sacrifices. I completely disagree with that. I think it is not about sacrificing anything. In fact, it is about ensuring that the life continues,’ said Mr Sinkevičius and went on stressing that some people would say that the Green Deal was expensive despite the fact that alternatives might be more expensive. He took Poland as an example, which had previously used a lot of cheap coal for economic reasons, but had to launch a 28-million-euro programme to fight smog. The Commissioner emphasised that ‘around 48 thousand people die prematurely every year due to ailments related to pollution, specifically from coal.’

‘The Green Deal can ensure our strategic autonomy, because we will be self-sufficient on the resources that we can produce ourselves. The Green Deal can help tremendously as regards our people’s health and that would significantly decrease the pressures for our national budgets, especially in the lines for the health care. […] The Green Deal can provide new, good alternatives. […] The most important thing for us is to not try to catch up but to be the ones who form that transition and leads it,’ stressed the Commissioner.  

 

In her intervention, Ms Daniella Tilbury, Commissioner for Sustainable Development and Future Generations to the Government of Gibraltar, also said that modelling of the future of the generations to come required to have a clear vision. ‘In fact, what would be very worthwhile and valuable and needed is parliamentary frameworks and governance systems that very much serve as beacons in our communities that we can construct that much brighter future. What we require now is a vision, enthusiasm, positivity, a world view that speaks about what is possible rather than how we are going to be addressing the issues that are facing us on a date-to-date basis,’ said Ms Tilbury.

 

Ms Jolita Butkevičienė, Director for Innovation in Science and Policymaking, Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, talked about the situation of democracy in Europe and civic engagement in problem solving. She stressed the crucial role of the social contract between decision-makers and citizens. ‘If the values on which we shape policies do not respond to the values of citizens then the futures we are constructing with these policies will neither be resilient nor sustainable,’ noted Ms Butkevičienė. According to her, in order to achieve good outcomes in political decision-making, it is crucial to increase civic engagement in all stages of decision-making.

 

Mr Rodrigo Goñi Reyes, Chair of the Special Committee on the Future of the General Assembly of Uruguay, claimed that due to Russia’s war against Ukraine as well as various other geopolitical and social tensions we were living in the context of a poly-crisis. ‘We urgently need to change the paradigm and strategies of governance. We need to work on the strengthening of social and parliamentary anticipatory capabilities. […] As we live in a world of complex interdependence, the other key pillar is inter- and trans-disciplinary work. We need to work closer building together shared meaning and anticipatory shared sense, in both Europe, Latin America, and Africa, through collective intelligence knowledge creation. And the Future Committees of parliaments had proven to be very useful for that purpose,’ said Mr Reyes.

Photos by Ilona Šilenkova, Office of the Seimas

 

The Congress concluded its work by adopting a Joint Statement

 

The Joint Statement calls on the world’s parliaments and regional and global inter-parliamentary organisations to strengthen the dimension of parliamentary action geared towards addressing the long-term challenges of the future of the world, including, among others, through the establishment and development of parliamentary Committees for the Future or their equivalents.

 

The participants of the Congress expressed their conviction that a universally acceptable future of the world was only possible if international law was respected, with complete abandonment of armed confrontation as a means of resolving inter-state conflicts and elimination of the consequences of armed aggression.

 

The Joint Statement also supports the proposal by the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania to continue the inter-parliamentary discussions on the most important aspects of the future of the world which were initiated at this Congress.

 

Please click HERE (EN) for the entire text of the Joint Statement.

 

Jolanta Anskaitienė, Adviser, Press Office, Information and Communication Department, tel. +370 5  239 6508, mob. +370 5 699 04 243, e-mail: [email protected]