St pete hosting CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly session - 7 December, 2002

St Petersburg is hosting the 20th session of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (IPA) of the CIS member states.

Speaking at the session opening, Chairman of the CIS IPA Council, Speaker of Russia's Federation Council (upper chamber of parliament) Sergei Mironov determined the two basic sets of issues to be discussed by parliamentarians and experts invited to the session.

The first set includes education-related issues, which, in Mironov's words, are becoming decisive in the conditions of globalization and information society development. The stability of social and economic development of the CIS member countries presupposes both the preservation of positive experience accumulated for the past years, and the careful reformation, with due account taken of the changes. He noted that parliamentarians would have to consider four draft laws in the field of science and education, and by 2003 - to complete working on a draft Education Code that is to become a natural unifying basis for national education-regulating laws.

The second set is devoted to the use of international election standards in the CIS and European legislations. Mironov recalled that the October CIS summit in Chisinau adopted the Convention "On the Standards of Democratic Elections, Suffrage and Liberties in the CIS States." The 20th session of the CIS IPA will consider the "Manual for international CIS observers on the monitoring of elections", noted the CIS IPA Council Chairman.