53rd IPA CIS Plenary Session Held in Tavricheskiy Palace
26 November 2021
Today, the 53rd plenary session of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly was held in the Tavricheskiy Palace – the IPA CIS headquarters.
Chairperson of the IPA CIS Council, Speaker of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Valentina Matvienko opened the event and summed up the results of the Assembly’s work over the past period.
The meetings of the working bodies of the Assembly were held in due time: permanent commissions, expert advisory boards, including the first meetings of the Expert Advisory Board on Science and Education at the IPA CIS. In 2021, the Assembly organized a number of large-scale international events, including the international parliamentary conference “Global Challenges and Threats in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Terrorism and Violent Extremism”, the ninth Nevsky International Ecological Congress, the sixth CIS International Cultural and Educational Forum of “Children of the Commonwealth”, the third Eurasian Women’s Forum.
The day before, the Tavricheskiy Palace hosted an international conference “Universal Health Coverage and Sustainable Development Goals”, which generated much interest: representatives of national legislative bodies, international parliamentary and specialized organizations took part in plenary sessions and panel discussions.
Valentina Matvienko recalled that the next meeting of the IPA CIS Council, dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Interparliamentary Assembly, would be held in Almaty on 28-29 March. She also thanked the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan for this initiative.
By tradition, at the beginning of the plenary session, welcoming speeches were made by the heads and members of parliamentary delegations, including Speaker of the Milli Majlis of the Azerbaijan Republic Sahiba Gafarova, Speaker of the Council of the Republic of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus Natalya Kochanova (via videoconferencing), Speaker of the Senate of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan Maulen Ashimbaev, Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova Igor Grosu (via videoconferencing), Speaker of the Senate of the Oliy Majlis of the Republic of Uzbekistan Tanzila Narbaeva, Speaker of the Mejlis of the Milli Gengesh of Turkmenistan Gulshat Mammedova, Deputy Speaker of the Senate of the Parliament of the Republic of Kazakhstan Askar Shakirov (in his capacity as the Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe).
Further, the Regional Director for Europe of the World Health Organization Hans Kluge presented the Joint Statement of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly and Vienna Regional Office of the International organization for Migration and the Regional Office for Europe of the World Health Organization “Legislative Support for Labor Migration During the Pandemic”.
Chief of Mission of the International Organization for Migration in Moscow Abdusattor Esoev also spoke on the issue and expressed gratitude to the IPA CIS and the national parliaments for their attentive attitude towards migrants and the problems they face in conditions of an acute crisis caused by the global pandemic.
The plenary session adopted the Model Laws on Equal Access to Prevention, Diagnostics and Treatment of HIV Infection in CIS Member Nations, on Organ Donation, on Evaluation Activities, on Grain, on Legal Regime of Territories Affected by Radioactive Contamination, as well as the Recommendations on Incorporation of Norms of International Humanitarian Law in Guidance Documents of Military Forces, Schedules of Military Professional Education and Troops Training of the CIS Member Nations, the Model Procedure for Evaluating Initiatives in the Field of Regulation of Drug Trafficking, Psychotropic Substances and Their Precursors, the Recommendations on CIS Cooperation in the Field of Digital Development and the Recommendations on Establishing Common Approaches to Providing Electronic Legal Deposit of Printed Editions in CIS Member Nations.
The CIS Concept of Sustainable Development and its Legal Framework were also approved.
Thus, the total number of model legal acts adopted by the Assembly has reached 611.
