Around 300 members of parliament from 80 parliaments met in Brussels from 24 to 26 November 2004, at the aannual session of the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO, which was jointly organised by the European Parliament (EP) and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). They adopted a Declaration in which they "urge governments and parliaments to engage in a regular dialogue so that the latter can effectively exercise parliamentary oversight of the international trade negotiations and their follow-up."

EP President, Josep Borrell, reminded participants at the opening session that the European Parliament had been one of the driving forces for the development of the parliamentary dimension of the WTO ever since the Seattle meeting of 1999. Parliaments, he said, had a vital role "as a bridge between people protesting in the streets and those negotiating behind the scenes." If globalisation was to be fairer and better organised, it was essential to take a balanced approach between "the three Ds: Development, Democracy and Doha," he said.

For IPU President Sergio Paez Verdugo, the fact that the WTO was "an exceptionally powerful international institution, whose influence goes far beyond trade matters" made it vital for it to interact with parliaments to "ensure it was under democratic control."

Parliamentarians debated key areas of current WTO negotiations, including agriculture and trade in services from a development perspective. On Friday 26 November, an interactive session was held with WTO Director-General, Dr. Supachai Panitchpakdi, who stated "I cannot emphasise enough the importance of having our colleagues in parliaments involved as closely as possible in the WTO's work of making economic development work for all countries. It is always our goal to promote multilateralism - there really is no alternative for sustained economic development. All countries, big and small, must be able to participate in drawing up trade rules which are fair for all."

In the Declaration, which was adopted at the closing session, the parliamentarians welcomed the July 2004 decision of the WTO General Council concerning the Doha Work Programme, the parliamentarians stated that this "raised hopes that the impasse of the Ministerial Conference in Cancun has finally been overcome, with a consensual roadmap now in place for moving the multilateral trade negotiations forward." The Declaration also confirms the substantial contributions that parliamentarians can make to the WTO negotiations and calls upon the respective governments to include members of parliaments in their official delegations at the Sixth WTO Conference, in Hong Kong (13 - 18 December 2005), and to include in the final Ministerial declaration the following paragraph "Transparency of the WTO should be enhanced by associating parliaments closely with the activities of the WTO".

The parliamentarians decided to hold the next session of the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO, on the occasion of the Sixth WTO Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong, in December 2005.

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Established in 1889 and with its Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the IPU, the oldest multilateral political organisation, currently brings together 140 affiliated parliaments and seven regional assemblies as associate members. The world organisation of parliaments has an Office in New York, which acts as its Permanent Observer at the United Nations.
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Contact for additional information or interviews:

Mrs. Luisa Ballin, IPU Information Officer 5, ch. du Pommier, CH - 1218 Le Grand-Saconnex / Geneva Tel. +41 22 919 41 16/27 Fax: +41 22 919 41 60 E-mail: lb@mail.ipu.org or cbl@mail.ipu.org