16/10/2026 European Conference of Presidents of Parliament
“We must never forget that behind every political decision there are millions of people who trust in our ability to protect them and to build a horizon of peace,” Lorenzo Fontana, President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, said, opening a session on renewing the rules-based international order at the European Conference of Presidents of Parliament. “It is therefore our duty to ensure that these hopes are not disappointed, because the credibility of our institutions is also measured by our ability to turn rules into guarantees, dialogue into solutions, and the hope of peace into a concrete commitment.”
Numan Kurtulmuş, Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Türkiye, called for parliaments to play a more active role in shaping international rules. “If we want to build a fairer and more credible rules-based international order, parliaments must play an active role in shaping, debating and supporting the new rules and arrangements required for this purpose.”
“The international order has never been self-sustaining. Every generation has had to renew it. The generation that established the post-war institutions understood that peace requires rules, dialogue and co-operation,” Sir Lindsay Hoyle, Speaker of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, noted.
Ágnes Forsthoffer, Speaker of the Hungarian National Assembly, highlighted the importance of parliamentary diplomacy in keeping channels of communication open. “Parliamentary diplomacy can maintain contact even when dialogue between governments becomes difficult. In this way, it can support mediation, confidence-building and peaceful resolution.”
Looking beyond Europe, Francis Scarpaleggia, Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada, underlined how international rules can constrain the power of stronger states. “We know that smaller players like us benefit when the game is played by the rules because while the powerful may shape the rules, their power is afterward constrained by having to abide by them.”
