Photo: roscongress.org

The Inter-Parliamentary Union aids in the development of parliamentarism, observance of human rights, and establishment of international peace and preservation of international safety. This year the forum’s agenda included such topics as protection of human rights and freedoms, combatting terrorism, stable global development, the role of women and young people in politics and economics. Vladimir Putin at the opening ceremony of the 137^th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union stressed that it is no accident the meeting is taking place in St. Petersburg, for it was precisely here at the start of the last century that the work of the first Russian parliament began, parliamentary traditions were formed, the legislative practice and the culture of parliamentarism. “We will move successively on the path of development of democratic, representative institutes of power. Throughout the world, parliaments express the will of the people, play a symbolic, significant, at times leading role in developing national models for development, and of course, in searching for adequate responses to modern challenges and threats that are common for all of us,” Vladimir Vladimirovich noted.

The IPU forum is the most representative during its entire 128-year history: over 160 delegations, of them 96 speakers and 2,400 participations. It took place in the Expoforum convention and exhibition centre, the most state-of-the-art site in Russia at which the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum has been held for two years already, with up to 15,000 people in attendance.