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IPU Press conference: Martin Chungong IPU Secretary General - continuity - 29 July 2025
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Press Conferences | UNOG , IPU
IPU Press conference: Martin Chungong IPU Secretary General - 29 July 2025
Press briefing by Mr Martin Chungong, IPU Secretary General, ahead of the Sixth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament
The Sixth World Conference of Speakers of Parliament is organized by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), in close collaboration with the United Nations. The World Conference of Speakers of Parliament is due to take place from 29 to 31 July 2025 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.
Established in 2000 by the IPU, the World Conference of Speakers of Parliament brings together the highest level representatives of parliaments and the United Nations every five years. Previous Conferences have played an important role in strengthening the parliamentary dimension of global governance and bridging the democracy gap in international affairs.
During the Conference, the world’s top legislators are expected to engage with leaders from international organizations, academia, civil society and the media.
Programme highlights
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29 July 2025: Start of the General Debate on A world in turmoil: Parliamentary cooperation and multilateralism for peace, justice and prosperity for all, and panel 1 on women’s and youth participation in parliament.
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30 July 2025: Panels on innovating for peace, achieving the SDGs by 2030, parliaments’ role in shaping the digital future, and anti-discrimination action.
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31 July 2025: Interactive debate with multiple stakeholders on “networked” global governance, and adoption of the final declaration.
Teleprompter
[Other language spoken]
Welcome to the press briefing of the UN Information Service here in Geneva.
Today is Tuesday, 29th of July, and we have the great privilege to have with us our colleagues from IPU and namely Mr.
Martin Chung Wan, the IPU Secretary General, and of course, you know, Thomas Fitzsimons, the Director of Communication.
Martin, we are very happy to have you here, which is why we're starting this briefing a little bit earlier to hear from you about the 6th World Conference of Speakers of Parliament, which is starting today at the Paledinacion with a very large number of delegates.
So I'll give you the floor for introductory remarks.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Alexandra.
I, as always, I'm very pleased to be with you here today and today.
As you've just said, Alexandra, I will give you an update on where we are with the 6th World Conference of Speakers of Parliament.
As you will know, this is a conference that the IPU holds every five years, and we've been having this conference since the year 2000.
So we're into the 6th edition here in Geneva.
And we're pleased that Geneva, the capital of diplomacy, the capital of peace, humanitarian work, is hosting this very important meeting of top legislators from across the world.
We are expecting some 102 speakers.
Actually, we will be welcoming them this afternoon, 102 speakers.
And there's some 113 or 15 countries represented during this world conference of Speakers of Parliament.
And we are pleased that they are able to come as top legislators to identify the global challenges that are facing the community, the world community, and also indicate how they, as the legislative authorities in their countries, can help move the agenda.
We are at the time when conflicts are rising in the world, tensions are rising globally.
And we think that it's on defeating that legislative authorities come together and say what they can do to support multilateralism, which is, as we all know, in a bad way today.
We want them to reaffirm their faith in multilateralism, but also indicate how multilateralism can be fixed to be more In Sync with the 21st century.
So we, we will be listening to them in the next three days and they will come up with a declaration which I hope will be forward-looking, identifying pathways towards peace, justice and prosperity for humanity as seen by the top most parliamentary authorities in in the world.
We have also endeavoured to reach out to other communities apart from the parliamentary community.
So we'll be having representatives of civil society, the scientific community and others to engage in a conversation with the legislators.
And we have reached out to the celebrity Michael Douglas.
We will be delivering an inspirational speech at the opening of the conference today.
And I think it's important that we hear other voices apart from just parliamentary voices during this conversations.
And so we, we look forward to the deliberations that are taking place in the coming days.
And but I also want to mention that this year is gender equality year for the IPO for the global community with landmark anniversaries taking place.
And so we've made a determined effort to focus more on women's empowerment in the world today.
And the summit of speakers was presided, was preceded yesterday by the summit of Women speakers.
Women speakers, you know, their numbers have increased in in the world today.
And some 40 of them were meeting yesterday here in Geneva to articulate their views on what is going on in the world today and how they can be more forthcoming in promoting women's empowerment, especially in the context of peacemaking.
We have all noticed that women are solely absent from peace processes, whereas they bear the brunt of many of the conflicts around the world.
So the declaration that they adopted yesterday is very strong on empowering women in peace processes and making sure that they can contribute to what we call a sustainable peace.
SH is you cannot have sustainable peace without women at the table.
And lastly, we in the IPU have launched this campaign on achieving Gender Equality Action by Action, which outlines 10 actions that could be taken by legislators and other stakeholders to promote women's empowerment, parity in political processes, fighting gender based violence and making our institutions generally and more specifically Parliament, more gender sensitive for a better decision making and for better outcomes for the world.
So I will stop at this point, Alexandra and I will be pleased to field any questions that you may have for me.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much Martin.
And I will indeed open the floor to questions.
Says that with the room.
[Other language spoken]
Robin is our correspondent of AFP.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
The the global challenges that are that are facing the world, I mean, we can think of perhaps Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, but how will speakers of parliament actually be able to address these challenges?
What do you think that they will be able to achieve?
[Other language spoken]
I think first of all, they're going, I believe they're going to reaffirm their belief and faith in multilateralism as the pathway towards resolving global conflict.
That's one thing that is going to happen.
But at their own individual level, these are people who preside over the institutions at national level that make policy that integrates the outcomes of peace processes into local legislation.
They are the people who are locate the budgets.
They're the people who governments accountable for commitments that they enter into at the international level.
So they will be leaving here, I hope, with the resolve to continue to use those powers that accrue to them by their constitutions to make a difference.
And during this week, I would like to say that the IPO of the convener, the global convener of parliaments will be promoting a number of platforms where discussions will be taking place away from the limelight on some of these intractable conflicts like the Ukraine, Russia conflict that you've mentioned here.
We have delegations from the two countries present here.
I have also invited the parliament, the parliamentary authorities, the speakers of the Parliament of Rwanda and DLC.
They've accepted my invitation.
We're going to have a conversation on how they, as parliamentarians, can contribute to the peace efforts that are on the way.
So there will be declarations, of course, because it's important that the global community is reassured by the resolve of parliamentary authorities to help solve this global challenges.
But there will also be a number of practical things happening during this week that would help legislators Radia rule as a representatives of the people.
Thank you very much.
The question in the room I go to the platform otherwise so I can see.
Antonio Brotto has a question from FA the Spanish news agency.
Antonio, good morning.
[Other language spoken]
We have been informed that the President of the Mexican Senate won't be able to participate.
I wonder if you have information of other last minute changes in the list of participants.
And also I I have a question more general.
You said that this meeting is held among challenges because of the many conflicts in the war.
I wonder if one of the challenge is the danger of of that is, is in some countries, if the separation of powers of power is is endangering in some countries.
[Other language spoken]
Yeah, thank you very much.
Yes, I can confirm that the President of the Mexican Senate will be participating in the conference this week and he he will be addressing the plenary debate during this conference.
When it comes to the the separation of powers, again, we have always said that yes, democracy dictates that you have separation of powers and Montesquieu said it very clearly between the judiciary, the legislative and the executive.
That is the ideal.
But we have to be lucid and say that democracy is always a work in progress, it is never perfect.
And so we will find that in some countries, legislative authorities are less able to exercise their functions because of the democracy or lack of democracy in those countries.
So yes, I agree that you have some cases where there will be imbalance between the executive arms of government and the legislative arms of government, which is for us is something that is happening all the time.
But we want to continue to promote strong parliaments and make them empowered to empower them to exercise their role because it is not like we that we're going to usurp the powers of the government in the in the constitutions.
In many countries, parliaments have specific functions.
And so we want them to use those functions to make a difference.
Of course, they have to operate at arm's length of the government, although in many cases, there should be collaboration between those two arms of government.
Thank you very much.
Other questions to Mr Chunkin.
I let me see if there is any other one on the platform.
Boris.
[Other language spoken]
Yes, Boris Engelson, local freelancer.
My question is still a little bit vague in my mind.
There are people who consider that presidential systems are less democratic than purely parliamentary system.
[Other language spoken]
Has the International Parliamentary Union ever initiated a debate on these issues?
And today it is not the meeting of the IPU, it's of the speakers.
But the speakers probably also have a very different job in parliamentary and in presidential systems.
Yeah, thank you very much.
I, I want, I want to be more practical in the way I respond to this question.
The thing is, for us, it's not whether you need a presidential system or a parliamentary system of government.
What we want is that they should in every country, in every democracy worthy of the name, they should be a parliament, a parliament that is the institution that represents the people directly.
They receive their mandate from the people and not indirectly because some presidents, they do receive their mandate indirectly from the people.
They are elected by the parliament but although in many cases, in vast majority of cases, they 2 are elected directly.
So you need a parliament in every governance dispensation and that is what we are advocating for.
And then you want that parliament to have the powers to do what a traditional parliament has to do.
That is law making, holding government to account and budgetary resources and if you want, being representatives of the people in general and that is what is important.
We have the pros and cons of different systems of government.
I can tell you, for instance, the for the parliamentary system of government, like the one in the Westminster system, like in the UK, some people might argue that there is a thin line between the executive arm of government and the Parliament because ministers, government ministers are at the same time members of parliament.
So where's that element of accountability?
You know, So some people might argue that in this case the parliamentary system of government is not as democratic as one would have it, but it is important that parliamentarians be able to play that role, and they should.
And in this case of the Westminster system, if I could be practical, it is the backbenchers that play the role of accountability oversight over government.
So there are pros and cons.
We can go into this discussions at the philosophical but also the theoretical level to see which system is better.
The presidential.
[Other language spoken]
And I don't want to call names, but you know, where you have a lot of power concentrated in the hands of one person, the President of the Republic, it may pose a danger to society as a whole.
But yes, what is important is that there should be a legislative arm of government that is empowered to deliver.
Thank you very much, John Heilping at the news.
Mr Secretary General, thank you for taking my question.
[Other language spoken]
What I'm wondering is, beyond traditional parliamentary diplomacy, what concrete the innovative strategies can national parliaments through the IPU implement to not only counter this decline, but actively re engage sceptical countries and foster renewed commitment to global cooperation and shared responsibility and with with organisations themselves under it threatened?
Is there anything that the IPU can do to actually strengthen other organisations like yourself?
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
Yes, multilateralism is in a bad way, because the multilateralism that we know it today is very much the multilateralism that was established 80 years ago when the United Nations was created.
A lot has gone on at the bridge and I don't think that sufficient concentration has been given to the evolution of the world up until now and that is what the IP is saying.
We need to take into account the developments that have taken place, the new stakeholders that have been made, civil society, the scientific community, the faith-based community, they have to have an input.
When the founders of multilateralism 8 years ago put in place this system of global governance, I don't think they were looking at Parliament as a strong contributors to multilateralism.
But today that has evolved, it has changed and thanks to the IPU, we are mobilising, we're convening parliaments and parliamentarians to be present where global processes are taking place.
But let us be clear that we are not saying that parliament should substitute for governments.
In international law, we know that governments have the prerogative to enter into agreements to conclude treaties, but they have to do this informed by the views of the representatives of the people.
So to answer your question, we promote parliamentary engagement at the international level to have a discussion, to contribute, to bring the people's voice to global negotiations.
I think that this helps make international decision making and multilateralism more efficient and more democratic and legitimate.
So that's one thing that we want them to do.
And when you have parliaments and parliamentarians involved in international processes, then you build some championship among them.
And when they go back home, they're better able to defend the outcomes of international processes and factor this into the legislative framework in the country and locate the necessary resources for government to implement the this outcome of the international processes.
And of course, all the government accountable for its pledges.
That is one thing that I think parliamentary diplomacy has as an advantage, that it makes international processes more legitimate.
And that is what we are very anxious to do.
And that is why parliamentarians are here, top legislators are here today to say that we have the role, but that role, yes, of course, at the international level is to articulate the views of the people, but also to take the view back, back home, the outcomes of international processes.
Because you agree with me that multilateralism lacks legitimacy today because not all the stakeholders we should be involved in articulating the values of multilateralism are being engaged enough.
So I I think that it is important, but parliamentary diplomacy also can and should be articulated at the bilateral level.
I did mention earlier that during this summit we will be having bilateral meetings facilitated by the IPU between countries, between parliamentarians whose countries are in conflict.
That is the value of parliamentary diplomacy, which I hasten to say, complements traditional diplomacy in a way that leads to international processes being considered more legitimate and more effective in delivering on the expectations of the people.
So yes, we will articulate parliamentary diplomacy at the international level, but also at the national level.
Martin, thank you very much.
There is a a question that I'm going to read in the chat and it's a question from Mrs Coker Kosma from RTS, the national Swiss radio.
She asks a meeting between Valentina Matianko and Ukrainian delegation are going to take place or any other bilateral meeting between the two countries?
No, not for the time being.
We don't have any confirmation that there will be any direct contacts between the two delegations of Ukraine and Russia.
We, we, we have not been informed about that, but we, as the global convener of Parliament, would encourage such a meeting to because we are built on dialogue.
Our founding fathers envision dialogue as the best pathway to resolving a conflict.
And it is important that when two parties at loggerheads, they should be able to sit around the table and have a a conversation that is likely to help resolve the dispute or the conflict.
So yes, we, we, we don't have any confirmation that the two delegations will be meeting, but if they were to meet, we would encourage them to do that.
But I want to point out that we also have a mechanism within the IPU that is intended to contribute to efforts to resolve the conflict in Ukraine today and is the task force on the peaceful resolution of the conflict in Ukraine.
And there we have achieved some success.
At least the two sides are talking to the IPU and we're identifying specific issues on which the two countries can cooperate.
And there's evidence that that is happening.
But not everything can be said publicly.
But I think sometimes of diplomacy works.
And but for the time being, we don't have a confirmation that the two delegations will be meeting.
But on the other hand, I have told you before, and I stress that that it's not only Ukraine and Russia, it's also Rwanda and DRC.
And they are going to to be meeting here under the auspices of the IPU, which I think is a good sign.
Very good, very good one.
Thank you very much.
I don't see other questions from Yes, please.
Can you introduce yourself?
Yeah, I'm Magali Rocha from the Oh, yes, I would like to ask you the same question, but can you answer in French?
Is that possible presence the delegation?
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Thank you very much, Martin Merci beaucoup.
So I will now give the floor to Thomas for a few logistics about the meeting that starts I understand this afternoon at 3:00.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much, Alessandra, and thank you for hosting us as a prequel to the to the weekly briefing.
Just to repeat that the conference is from the 29th to the 31st of July.
It starts officially at 3:00 PM with the inauguration of the newly renovated cell disassembly.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Just to remind you and, and also the the keynote speaker, Michael Douglas is expected to, to give his speech between 3:00 and 4:00.
And just before that there is a meet and greet as the speakers come into the Balladinacion in Hall 14.
And there is an area for media if you want to take pictures as they come in.
And then pictures and video footage will also be available.
Thanks to our colleagues at the United Nations Information Services.
And you'll have seen as well that there is a stakeout, A stakeout space in Hall 14 in the usual location.
And if you want to use that, please write to press@ipu.org.
Give us an hour's notice, and we'll make sure that the mics are turned on.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
Maybe just to add to this logistics, 2 more issues.
Indeed, as, as Thomas said, we inaugurated the Assembly hall.
For those of you who follow the strategic heritage plan is, I guess, a very big achievement.
So you're invited to cover it visually.
We have organised and now I'm speaking under Thomas control we have organised 2 pools.
So if you haven't done it yet, if you are interested in in being in the pool, Jill Serini is managing the pool for the Assembly hall.
So that would be as usual an agency pool and an econo pool.
Both photographer and videographer.
The room 5 has been turned into a press centre that obviously it's for the journalist who are accredited to IP Humid.
You can use also as journalist of the palace.
But if I forgotten the media gallery this time is not on the side but it's on the 5th floor in the centre so you're invited to go there as unfortunately we cannot accommodate all the journalist in on the floor.
[Other language spoken]
[Other language spoken]
And tomorrow we will, I don't know, maybe you will, will send something out for tomorrow if there's any media opportunity.
[Other language spoken]
I mean that there will be on Thursday, we'll have a closing press release and there might be some extra news tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.
There's also the group picture with the 102 Speakers of Parliament, which we will be making available as soon as it's ready.
[Other language spoken]
Thank you very much.
So I thank very much our colleagues of IPUI wish you, Martin, thank you very much for being with us.
I wish you a very successful conference.
Thanks for briefing the journalist and keep them informed please.
And yeah, thank you.
Good conference, good events and we are very happy to host it at the Pallet.
[Other language spoken]