131st Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) General Assembly (Geneva, 13-16/10/2014)

The 131st IPU General Assembly took place in Geneva, from 13 to 16 October 2014. The Hellenic Parliament was represented by a Delegation headed by Mr. G. Konstantopoulos and composed by Mr. P. Rigas, Mrs. D. Avgerinopoulou, Mrs. M. Triantafillou and Mrs. M. Chrisoveloni,.
The issues tackled during the Assembly were, mainly: Disarmament, Parliamentarians  human rights protection, Women rights protection, Women and Young Parliamentarians participation, Sustainable Development, the UN Principles implementation, Peace and Democracy Principles promotion.
During the above mentioned General Assembly Mr Chowdhury (Bangladesh) was elected as the new Speaker of the IPU for a 3-year term.

In a parallel track, and in the frame work of IPU the 1st IPU Global Conference of Young Parliamentarians was held on 10-11 October 2014. More than 180 young MPs, from 61 countries, as well as youth leaders and experts identified youth quotas for parliaments and political parties among several key actions in a way to assure youth political representation and participation. Greece participated to this conference with Mrs. D. Avgerinopoulou, chairperson of the IPU committee on UN Affairs, who proposed the holding of the 2016 IPU Global Conference of Young Parliamentarians in Greece.