Interparliamentary head speaks on importance of Parliaments, UN reform
Regional-Morocco, Politics, 5/5/1999

Acting chairman of the interparliamentary council, Miguel Angel Martinez (Spain) who is visiting Morocco this May 1-5 held talks in Rabat with several Cabinet members and was received on Tuesday in Marrakesh by King Hassan II who decorated him with the Alawite wissam, grand officer order.

Martinez, who is visiting the kingdom at the invitation of the speaker of the House of Representatives (lower house of the Moroccan parliament), held separate meetings with the prime minister, Abderrahmane Youssoufi, and with the minister of economy and finance, Fathallah Oulalaou.

Talks focused on political, economic and financial cooperation between Morocco and the European Union, Euro-Mediterranean partnership, the situation in the Middle East and Kosovo as well as on Morocco's alternation experience that consolidates, as put by Martinez, Morocco's credibility at the European and international levels.

Throughout the talks he held in Morocco, the acting chairman of the interparliamentary council underlined the importance of this alternation experience that "makes of the Kingdom a pioneer country in Africa," he said.

In a statement to the Moroccan news agency MAP he insisted that this experience is followed with keen interest on the international scene and is perceived with great hope.

He added that he would back "with all his strength" such an experience that is, he said, "surely essential to Morocco, but also to the Mediterranean and to us all."

Morocco's alternation experience that brought to power a socialist-led coalition government raises keen interest both in Africa and in the Arab world.

In early 1998, King Hassan II entrusted the first secretary of the Socialist Union of Popular Forces, Abderrahmane Youssoufi, with forming an alternation government that was actually appointed on March 14, 1998, bringing to power center-left parties after decades of right-wing rule. The coalition cabinet is made up of 41 ministers from 7 political leftist and centrist parties.

Angel Martinez said Europe should contribute to the success of this political experience that crowns the efforts for democratization, social justice, and progress and that implies a new dimension for parliamentary life.

In an earlier statement, the Interparliamentary council chairman deemed it necessary to initiate a "democratization" and "parliamentarization" of the United Nations. The government's monopoly over the international policy is no longer acceptable, he said adding that parliaments are increasingly becoming fundamental partners at this level.

He announced in this regard that a conference gathering the speakers of parliaments of all the countries will be held in New York in the course of year 2000 to confirm the role of parliaments on the international political scene. The 2nd meeting of the preparatory committee of this conference will be held in Morocco next September, Martinez said, recalling that the committee's first meeting was held in Vienna last February.

Angel Martinez also held meetings with members of the secretariat general of the council of youth and the future (CNJA), with Moroccan economic operators and with members of the Moroccan parliament.

Angel Martinez was elected chairman of the interparliamentary council for a three-year term in September 1997 during the council's 16th session held in Cairo.

The interparliamentary council, set up in 1889, is one of the initiators of what is commonly known as multilateral cooperation. It contributed to the setting up of the Community of Nations, of the UNO and of the Hague-based permanent arbitration court -a framework of parliamentary consultation and diplomacy.

The court, gathering legislators from 136 parliaments, addresses issues of concern to the international community and proposes means of improving the working methods of parliamentary institutions.

Previous Stories:
  Arab ambassadors meet with officials at the European parliament   (4/29/1999)
  Arab human rights movement calls for substantial UN reforms   (4/27/1999)
  Syrian Parliamentary delegation arrives in Brussels   (4/12/1999)
  Moroccan minister says freedom of expression is major problem facing journalism in the Arab states   (3/26/1999)
  Conference for Mediterranean - European parliaments in Cairo in 2000   (3/10/1999)
  Arab Parliamentary Union opposes Baghdad withdrawing its recognition of Kuwait   (1/16/1999)
  UN General Assembly mulls Security Council reform   (11/20/1998)
  UN General Assembly president: UN ready for reform   (9/11/1998)
  Reforming the UN Security Council is all talk and no action   (8/26/1998)

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