Exceptional event at the Seimas: heads of international organisations, high-ranking politicians and experts focus on common solutions to the challenges facing the world of the future

On Friday, 12 May 2023, the Seimas will begin to host a two-day global parliamentary congress ‘The Future of the World’. The event will focus on the most relevant matters of geopolitics, democracy, sustainable development, climate change, demography and social sector. Particular attention will be paid to parliamentary democracy and to the tasks of national Parliaments in addressing the challenges of the future of the world.

‘Parliamentary activities very often make us concentrate on the current issues, namely, legal amendments, taxes, and political party competition in the run-up to elections. Meanwhile, the committees for the future seek to deal with long-term and multidisciplinary challenges related to the development of individual countries and the world as a whole. No one can ignore these challenges today,’ said Prof Raimundas Lopata, Chair of the Seimas Committee for the Future. ‘One of the goals of our Congress is to promote the establishment of committees for the future and encourage all national Parliaments to focus on the fundamentals of the future of society.’

The Congress agenda will be dominated by three main topics:

– Current global geopolitical situation and unprovoked Russian aggression against Ukraine;

– Parliamentary democracy and ways of implementing it;

– Long-term shared challenges for the future of the world and the need for reviewing the guidelines for the world’s future, as set out in the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations.

Programme: The Vilnius Congress will include the welcome addresses by Gitanas Nausėda, President of the Republic of Lithuania, and Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen, Speaker of the Seimas. The opening addresses will be made by Guy Ryder, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, and Duarte Pacheco, President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.  

During the three plenary sessions and the parallel sessions, the speeches will be delivered and the discussions will be attended by: Margareta Cederfelt, Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Swedish Riksdag, President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe; Duarte Pacheco, President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union; Oleksandr Korniyenko, First Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine; Daniella TILBURY, Commissioner for Sustainable Development and Future Generations of the HM Government of Gibraltar; Virginijus Sinkevičius, Member of the European Commission; Jovita Neliupšienė, Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania, appointed Ambassador of the Delegation of the European Union to the United States of America; Klaus Welle, Academic Council Chairman of the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, former Secretary General of the European Parliament; Andrius Kubilius, Member of the European Parliament; Anatoly Lebedko, Chairman of the United Civic Party of Belarus, etc.

The Congress is expected to close with a joint statement calling on the world’s parliaments to continue and deepen the discussions on the parliamentary responsibility for the future of the world.

On Saturday, 13 May 2023, at 2 p.m., the Congress participants will hold a press conference that, like the entire event, will be broadcast live on the Seimas YouTube account Atviras Seimas (Open Seimas).

For the regular update of the Congress programme and other relevant information on the event, please click HERE.

The first global expert dialogue on representation of the interests of future generations in current politics was organised by the Permanent Representation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the Permanent Representation of Jamaica to the United Nations in New York on 14 March 2023. Experts from Lithuania, South Africa, Panama, Colombia and the United Kingdom shared their insights at the event.

Throughout the world (Austria, Chile, Estonia, the Philippines, Iceland, Canada, Poland, Lithuania, Paraguay, Finland, Thailand, Uruguay, Vietnam), there are 13 parliamentary committees that, like the Seimas Committee for the Future, analyse key areas of public life and propose strategic solutions that will determine the future prospects of the country and the world. The names of seven committees contain the word ‘future’, while the names of other committees include such words as ‘sustainable development’, ‘general’, ‘grand’, ‘science, technology and innovation’.

For more information, please contact Giedrius Viliūnas, Adviser to the Office of the Committee for the Future of the Office of the Seimas, tel. +370 5 239 6950, mob. +370 612 59 600, e-mail: [email protected]

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