European Conference of Presidents of Parliaments
May 30-31, 2006 Tallinn, Estonia

European Conference of Presidents of Parliaments

Tallinn, Estonia

May 30-31, 2006

Theme I - “Bridge – building through Parliamentary Diplomacy”

Report by Mr Herman De Croo,
Speaker of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives

Contents

      Introduction

5. Conclusions

Introduction

The aim of this report is to clarify the notion of “parliamentary diplomacy”, identify the contexts in which it is applied and consider certain practical aspects, based on my experience as a parliamentary speaker and 38 years as a member of parliament.

1. The rise in parliamentary diplomacy

The final two decades of the last century will always be seen as a period of fundamental change in the world order.

One major transformation that we all experienced was the end of the cold war, leading to a major reshuffling of the global pack. The result has been a major growth in contacts with parliaments that have emerged from free elections and numerous personal links between parliamentarians. At the same time, the process of building Europe has continued and accelerated, and we are all increasingly involved in this task. In the economic and social domain we have seen the emergence of globalisation, and all the controversy surrounding it. One consequence of all this has been a formidable Europeanisation and internationalisation of our traditional environment.

At the same, certain new challenges, like terrorism, international migration and the environment, are just as worrying than those of the past.

Parliaments are well aware that they cannot take a back seat to the other leading figures on the international scene, particularly governments and NGOs, and have done much to develop what is now termed parliamentary diplomacy. As a result, they have become major players in international relations.

It has also become clear that the distinction between national and international affairs has become blurred, as a result of globalisation and the growing interdependence it has fostered.

Parliamentary diplomacy is simply parliaments’ response to the nature and complexity of the challenges posed by the interdependence that characterises today’s global world.

Whereas even a decade ago, parliamentary diplomacy could be described as an emerging concept, it is now a very tangible reality firmly anchored in parliamentary practice.

As the theme of our conference states, parliamentary diplomacy has become a link not only between countries, both bilaterally and multilaterally, but also between peoples. It is now an integral part of countries’ international relations. A growing number of parliaments have increased their influence over the conduct of external relations, to ensure they no longer have just the last word on the subject, but also, in certain cases, the first.

The role that parliamentarians can play on the international scene is now not only accepted but often encouraged by governments, who see in it a useful complement to, and even support for, traditional diplomacy.

Parliamentary diplomacy provides an alternative form of diplomacy to its traditional counterpart, which is more flexible because members of parliament are not constrained by diplomatic procedures, thus permitting freer discussion and debate. As Raymond Forni, former President of the French National Assembly has commented1, parliamentary diplomacy offers more freedom to speak out, and therefore greater sincerity, thus contributing to the success of national diplomacy.

Besides, members of parliament are not necessarily bound by their countries’ official stance, and sometimes express different views to those of their governments.

Like most of you, I attended the Second World Conference of Speakers of Parliaments at the United Nations headquarters in New York from 7 to 9 September 2005. In the words of the Conference Declaration, adopted by consensus, “We emphasise that parliaments must be active in international affairs not only through interparliamentary cooperation and parliamentary diplomacy, but also by contributing to and monitoring international negotiations, overseeing the enforcement of what is adopted by governments, and ensuring national compliance with international norms and the rule of law. Similarly, parliament must be more vigilant in scrutinising the activities of international organisations and providing input into their deliberations.”

2. Parliaments and globalisation: a new field for parliamentary diplomacy

The Belgian Chamber of Representatives has given considerable thought to globalisation and parliaments’ role in the process2.

Since the end of the Second World War, there has been a rapid growth in the number of international institutions devoted to promoting peace and economic development in the world, responding to the issues raised by the expansion of international trade and organising financial markets. These multilateral bodies adopt rules and establish arrangements which subsequently become binding on governments and peoples or are incorporated into national legislation.

It is no longer possible today to respond to the range and diversity of national and international situations and challenges in whatever field – economic, monetary or financial, social or cultural, scientific, technical or environmental, political or military – without recourse to international, intergovernmental and global organisations, international treaties and alliances and multilateral conventions, and without an expansion of international law and the number of global forums for discussion and negotiation.

No one can fail to be aware of the international dimension of problems and policies. It is no longer possible to exist at the local or national level without experiencing the effects of global scale events.

National parliaments have a responsibility to encourage the democratic regulation of globalisation. While national parliaments are responsible for monitoring the activities of their government representatives in international institutions, national democratic control is not sufficient. A global parliamentary approach is the only possible way of filling the existing gap in international relations. Multilateral co-operation requires a parliamentary dimension.

The Belgian Chamber of Representatives has established a special “globalisation” committee33 to strengthen parliamentary control of international organisations.

3. Parliaments’ and parliamentarians’ role in international relations and participation in world and regional organisations

Generally speaking, most countries are represented in international organisations by their governments. Yet parliaments, in whom popular sovereignty is vested, have a specific and legitimate role to play in this process, which must not be confined to ratifying conventions or authorising financial contributions to international organisations.

All too frequently, national parliaments are required to approve, within very tight deadlines, international conventions on which they have not been able to express their views at the appropriate time and on which there has been no substantive debate. Steps must be taken to strengthen the currently fairly loose links between executives and legislatures in the international sphere by encouraging co-operation and offering parliamentarians the opportunity to debate the options and implications of specific conventions or treaties, and even to participate in international organisations.

Members of the Belgian Chamber are members of the parliamentary assemblies of WEU, the Council of Europe, Benelux, OSCE, NATO and the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly (EMPA). Belgium is also a member of the European Union and the Chamber of Representatives is therefore involved in supranational decision making in this area.

It has to be said though that the current trend is towards the establishment of new interparliamentary institutions in which parliamentary diplomacy can be practised. For example, the World Trade Organisation’s Parliamentary Conference has been given institutional status in its rules of procedure and meets automatically in parallel with each WTO ministerial conference. In March 2004, the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Forum became the Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly.

The World Bank’s Parliamentary Network meets regularly and has its own Bureau, and its activities are becoming increasingly structured. OECD and UNESCO also invite members of parliament to take part in certain activities. This growing trend towards establishing new interparliamentary bodies is probably a consequence, in part, of the growth of parliamentary diplomacy, which has become an important element in the development of interstate relations. On the multilateral scale, this is reflected in the activities of international parliamentary assemblies.

Nevertheless, numerous parliaments are still reluctant to exercise control over the activities of certain international institutions, such as the World Bank, the IMF or the WTO, or of their governments’ role in them.

4. The different forms of parliamentary diplomacy

Without claiming to be exhaustive, I believe that most of the activities, whether bi- or multilateral, of parliamentary diplomats, can be summarised under the following headings4:

- exploratory diplomacy and good offices, in other words intervention by parliamentarians in        situations of diplomatic tension and crises;

4.1. Exploratory diplomacy and good offices: intervention in situations of diplomatic tension and crises

In November 1990, a Belgian parliamentary delegation visited Iraq to secure the release of twenty-four Belgian nationals. As the members of the delegation stressed on their return, the success of such missions is due in large part to the fact that members of parliament are not so constrained by international obligations as their governments might be.

I myself led a Belgian parliamentary delegation to the United States in February 2003 to improve that country’s image of Belgium. The delegation met the speakers of the two houses of Congress, senior officials of the Departments of State and of Defence and officials of the US Chamber of Commerce, which represents some three million businesses. We were able to stem the tide of American criticism of Belgium, which had been fed by a series of events such as statements that Israel’s Prime Minister Sharon might be prosecuted in Belgium and the Belgian stance on Iraq within NATO. The Americans appreciated this initiative and were able to see that we did not owe allegiance to other countries.

My fellow President of the Belgian Senate and I also took the initiative in May 2005 of organising the first conference of speakers of the parliamentary assemblies of Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Belgium on the Great Lakes region. The aim was to encourage political dialogue between these countries’ parliaments, reduce tensions within the region and strengthen links between its parliaments.

At the end of the conference, we approved a declaration that was the tangible sign of our joint commitment to a series of steps towards peace, security, democracy and development in the Great Lakes region, while continuing to respect the autonomy of each of our parliaments.

In particular, we called for fresh impetus to be given to the Economic Community of the Great Lakes Countries and a greater role for parliaments in this process, in order to make it a factor for stability in the sub-region and for its economic and social reconstruction and development.

4.2. Bringing influence to bear, to secure the adoption of a convention or treaty

Resolutions are a much appreciated form of influence whose use has increased considerably in recent years. They enable parliamentary assemblies, both national and international, to bring pressure to bear on governments to adopt a certain attitude to particular problems.

These resolutions cover such major themes as human rights, armed conflicts, co-operation and development, the problems of security and disarmament and European affairs.

The Chamber of Representatives has used resolutions as an additional means of making its voice heard, once its committees have examined particular issues.

The Belgian government is also required to inform the Chamber, twice a year, of what action has been taken on resolutions adopted.

4.3. Diplomacy for training purposes: courses and seminars for emerging democracies on parliamentary principles and practice

The Belgian Chamber of Representatives is of particular interest to numerous parliaments because it is a multilingual assembly where equal treatment of language communities has been established as a matter of principle.

It has participated in frequent initiatives, alone, in collaboration with other assemblies or jointly, in whole or in part, with national and international institutions. It has supported the establishment of the Kosovo Assembly and has given structural assistance to various African parliaments.

In Africa, many parliamentary assemblies are seeking support as part of their efforts to introduce democratic institutions. To take one example, Belgian members of parliament regularly take part in missions organised by AWEPA: European Parliamentarians for Africa.

The Belgian Chamber of Representatives has also played a very active part, as part of a consortium with the German Bundestag and the French National Assembly, in Kosovo, where it took part between September 2003 and March 2005 in a global aid programme to the Kosovo Assembly. The final report shows that the programme has been a success and has helped to strengthen the Assembly’s know-how and experience, both in its internal functioning – work in committee and in the full house, rules of procedure, training of administrative staff and upgrading of the computer network – and in its relations with the executive and civil society.

4.4. Exchanges: official visits abroad and visits from foreign personalities and delegations

I also have diplomatic functions as speaker of the Chamber. I am called on to receive numerous political dignitaries, from heads of state and government to fellow speakers and members of foreign parliamentary delegations. Despite their protocol side, these meetings often provide an opportunity to establish lasting contacts with or strengthen links between the two countries concerned. In the last 25 years, this diplomatic function has gained considerably in importance.

I regularly lead parliamentary delegations visiting their counterparts abroad and establishing relations with foreign parliamentarians. These delegations on official visits abroad are made up of members from all the political groups represented in the Chamber. We meet both majority and opposition members, in contrast to bilateral meetings between government representatives, where only the majorities meet.

These missions are often received at government level. Such meetings lead not only to a better understanding of the country visited and its institutional structure but also to a strengthening of the links between parliaments, the creation or reactivation of friendship groups, co-operation agreements and useful information for government or the world of business.

In certain countries, members of parliament are invited to accompany official visits abroad organised by the foreign, trade or defence ministries. This is the case in Belgium, where members of the Chamber of Representatives are regularly asked to accompany such government missions.

4.5. Representation: working with other parliamentary assemblies through delegations to take part in their activities, friendship groups and twinning arrangements

Members of international parliamentary delegations may be called on to carry out a “diplomatic” role, either individually, for example as rapporteur for a committee, or as a group, as members of a specialist committee. They may, for example, visit a member states to report on a particular political problem, such as a human rights violation or the rights of minorities. A recent example is the appointment in February 2005 of my colleague Anne-Marie Lizin, President of the Belgian Senate, as the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s special representative on Guantanamo, with the task of examining this issue and reporting back to the Assembly on the situation of prisoners held in the base.

She visited the American detention camp in Guantanamo Bay (Cuba) on Friday 3 March 2006. Ms Lizin, who also chairs the Belgian delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and is rapporteur for the Assembly’s Human Rights Committee, is the first European political figure to be officially invited to Guantanamo.

Her task is to draw up a detailed report, which will include an assessment of information received at meetings and on-the-spot observations. The report will also make recommendations to the United States and the international community. In due course, it will be published.

4.6. Election observation

Parliamentarians have obvious practical experience of the electoral process and the role and functioning of parliaments in democratic states. As Jean-Pierre Kingsley, Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer, has said, “parliamentarians in observation and assistance missions are veritable ambassadors of our democratic institutions. As such, they are privileged witnesses who can pass on their experience of how democratic electoral institutions work to their contacts in the country that the mission is visiting.”

Like many of its counterparts, the Belgian parliament regularly sends its members to observe elections in countries all over the world. Since 2005, the Chamber of Representatives has sent observations teams to observe elections in Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Albania, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Palestine, Costa Rica, Belarus, Ukraine and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

These multilateral missions are normally made up of two or three members of parliament from both the majority and the opposition, and are prepared in the minutest detail. For example on 29 March, in preparation for the forthcoming electoral observation mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in which members of the Chamber will take part, I and the presidents of the political groups met Abbé Apollinaire Malu Malu, President of that country’s Independent Electoral Commission.

In this connection, I wish to draw attention to the excellent amendment5 tabled by one of the Belgian delegation members to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Resolution on improving the implementation of OSCE electoral standards and commitments and the effectiveness of OSCE election observation activities. The resolution was part of the Washington Declaration adopted by the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly at its 14th annual session in July 2005.

4.7. Joint diplomacy: diplomatic missions by members of parliament on behalf of governments

Pierre Chevalier, a member of the Belgian Senate, has been appointed by the government as a special representative of the foreign ministry, for the Belgian presidency of the OSCE in 2006. Similarly as part of the Belgian chairmanship of the OSCE, François-Xavier de Donnea, a former minister and chair of the Chamber of Representatives’ finance committee, has been asked by the foreign minister, Karel De Gucht, to draw up a report on how the election observation machinery operates in practice in the OSCE, particularly as applied by the OSCE/ODIHR, the parliamentary assemblies of the OSCE and the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the institutions of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The report should enable the current chairman of the OSCE to make appropriate recommendations to the organisation’s ministerial meeting in December 2006.

5. Conclusions

Although parliamentary diplomacy presents numerous advantages, members of parliament still face a series of obstacles and pitfalls along the way.

5.1.       Advantages

Experience gained in international parliamentary assemblies is often invaluable when parliamentarians are required to deal with issues in their national parliaments.

Parliamentary diplomacy probably contributes more than might be imagined to the political maturity of a significant percentage of the population, by helping citizens to understand the major issues of international politics.

Establishing and consolidating parliaments and supporting the representative institutions of emerging democracies also helps to place democracy and the rule of law on a firm footing.

As the former French foreign minister Hubert Védrine6 has observed, members of parliament must always retain their freedom of judgment (their reports are not intended to voice the particular viewpoint of their country’s foreign minister), their distance and their ability to assess situations and make suggestions. Admittedly, the work of parliamentarians undertaking official visits is similar to that of a diplomat on a particular mission. However, what they have to say and their suggestions will be different. He therefore thought that it was not in their interests for members of parliament to enter too far into the diplomatic mould and become diplomatic envoys alongside others. They had their own specific characteristics which had to be preserved. On the other hand, it would be a great mistake for diplomats to believe that they still had a monopoly of relations, contacts, exchanges and information. That time was long past.

Transnational parliamentary control of international organisations made a key contribution to legitimising these organisations’ decisions and activities in the eyes of international public opinion, in both developed and developing countries.

Even though these assemblies cannot force governments to accept their recommendations, the positions they adopt are an important factor on the international scene that governments cannot afford to neglect.

5.2.       Pitfalls

Parliamentarians who are committed to the field of parliamentary diplomacy often have to face the tricky question of their re-election.

Time spent on such diplomacy is no longer available for other activities. It is often difficult to reconcile the need for regular constituency visits to maintain contact with voters with an active international agenda.

Moreover the absence of members of parliament for varying periods leads to their non-participation in national parliamentary activities, which voters do not particularly appreciate. In practice, citizen-electors are more concerned with national and local than with international issues.

Nor are the results of parliamentary diplomats’ labours abroad so tangible as those achieved by national and local activities.

In certain cases, there is also a failure on the part of some interparliamentary assemblies to follow up declarations or other final documents for which they have voted and that are addressed to the corresponding international organisation. The parliamentary monitoring that should enable national parliaments to exercise closer scrutiny of their own governments’ activities within intergovernmental organisations is also sometimes lacking.

There has to be closer co-ordination between the work of international assemblies and that of national parliaments. Documents produced by these assemblies must not remain within a closed circuit. Reports and conclusions adopted by international parliamentary assemblies that are submitted to national parliaments for consideration on the initiative of their respective delegations must be examined by the relevant national parliamentary committees.

Certain colleagues also wonder whether there is a need to rationalise interparliamentary co-operation. Over the last ten years or so there has been a considerable increase in parliamentary co-operation and new parliamentary bodies have been established, for example in the Mediterranean region7.

Additional problems include the need for adequate information for parliamentarians to enable them to accomplish certain tasks under the heading of parliamentary diplomacy and how to determine the political composition of delegations, particularly the role of the opposition.

PRI/DL/vt – 24.4.06

1 In the newspaper Le Monde, of 30 September 2000.

2 See the report of the parliamentary working group on globalisation, doc. Chambre 50 2330/1 to 3.

3

Its activities have included detailed investigations of the so-called Tobin tax, world governance, the institutional problems of the WTO, the issues surrounding the WTO General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS), the Millennium Development Goals, tax havens, universal access to water and international financial institutions, such as the World Bank and the IMF.

The committee invites civil society representatives, including NGOs, the social partners and leading academics to appear, either as experts or as participants authorised to take part in its discussions. Based on the Committee’s work, the Belgian Parliament has approved draft legislation to impose a tax on exchange operations involving foreign exchange, banknotes and currency, whose main aim is to raise funding for innovative development projects. The committee has also been active in familiarising Belgian members of parliament with the Millennium Development Goals.

4 This breakdown draws heavily on the address given by Bernard Patry, Vice-President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Francophonie, at a colloquy on parliamentary diplomacy in the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa on 29 April 2002.

5 “Recommends that, as part of the election observation missions organised in cooperation with ODIHR, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly make provision, as of the pre-electoral phase, for short missions giving parliamentarians a true picture of the course of the election campaign and enabling them to take stock in good time of any irregularities; small parliamentary delegations thus being able to increase pressure on the entities monitored”.

6 Address to the colloquy on parliamentary diplomacy organised by the French parliament on 23 May 2001.

7

The Euro-Mediterranean Parliamentary Assembly, the Conference of Speakers of the parliaments of the Mediterranean region and the Euro-Mediterranean Forum for women parliamentarians. The parliamentary assemblies of WEU, NATO, the Council of Europe and OSCE also devote part of their activities to the Mediterranean region and have launched several initiatives of varying scope on the subject.

For example, under the aegis of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary Forum on the Mediterranean sets out to develop closer links with the organisation’s Mediterranean partners for co-operation, comprising the following six countries: Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.

The so-called CSCM (Conference on Security and Co-operation in the Mediterranean) process has led to the creation of a new Mediterranean parliamentary assembly, that has not yet met.