20/03/2025 European Conference of Presidents of Parliament
“In the face of our democracies being targeted, our rule of law threatened, our fundamental values violently challenged, we Presidents of Assemblies bear an historic responsibility, that of being the bulwarks of our rule of law against of the perils that threaten them,” Yaël Braun-Pivet, President of the French National Assembly, said today, speaking on the theme of safeguarding democracy, at the European Conference of Presidents of Parliament in Strasbourg.
Referring to the war in Ukraine, she underlined that the first of these perils, was the brutal and frontal attack carried out against the principles on which international law is based, namely “the inviolability of borders and the freedom of peoples to self-determination”. “In addition to conventional wars, there is a new form of hybrid, informational and technological warfare, the aim of which is to sabotage our democracies from within,” she said.
According to Ms Braun-Pivet, the two other dangers gnawing at democracies are “the repeated attacks by some on the rule of law” (such as threats to fundamental freedoms and the balance of powers), and “mistrust of the very idea of parliamentary democracy and the exhaustion of the link between the people and their representatives”.
Against this backdrop, she proposed two possible paths: “reconnecting with a continuous and vibrant form of democracy” by giving citizens a more regular say, and “the openness and proximity of our Assemblies to restore the desire for democracy.”