Address of Hon. Rachid Talbi El Alami, Speaker of the House of Representatives, at the Closing Ceremony of the Institutional Twinning Project Between the House of Representatives and European National Parliaments

Honorable Speaker of the French National Assembly, Ms. Yaël Braun-Pivet, 

Esteemed officials of the partner legislative institutions of the Kingdom of Belgium, Hungary, Portugal, and Greece, 

Esteemed representative of the European Union’s Embassy in Morocco, 

Ladies and gentlemen,

We are pleased, at the House of Representatives of the Kingdom of Morocco, to receive you, esteemed friends and partners, to conclude yet another chapter of the Morocco-Europe parliamentary partnership, that is the Institutional Twinning Project uniting the House of Representatives, the French National Assembly, the Czech Chamber of Deputies, the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, the Hungarian National Assembly, the Italian Chamber of Deputies, the Hellenic Parliament, and the Assembly of the Republic of Portugal; and financed by the European Union.

I would first like to reiterate my thanks to the European Union, who finances this project that falls within the scope of supporting democracy and represents an expression of the efficiency of the multifaceted strategic partnership between the Kingdom of Morocco and the Union.

I would also like to thank my colleagues, the Speakers of the partner Parliaments who engaged in this project, which is the first of its kind given the number of parliaments taking part in the twinning. I would also like to express my esteem for their steadfast commitment to bringing this project to success and enabling it to achieve results over the odds.

This commitment mirrors the depth of the relations linking the Kingdom of Morocco and the European Union and its Member States and the keenness to anchor the values that we share, reinforce the democratic choice, and entrench the State of institutions while committing to respecting the institutional and democratic traditions and the context of each country, which in no way negates the supremacy of democracy as an idea, stature, and institutions.  

Ladies and gentlemen, 

I will not dwell on the record of the Institutional Twinning that speaks for itself through the figures that will be presented to us briefly and through the documents we hold in our hands. However, I must recall that the project covered questions that are highly important to reinforcing parliamentary governance and democracy, and worked on producing lasting documents, such as practical guidebooks, and diagnosing and analyzing the practices of the eight partner institutions.

One of the perks of the project is that it has addressed the problems determined primarily by the twinning documents through a benchmarking methodology and by evoking the practices of each partner country in the twinning. This process was of benefit to the experts and officers who held dialogues within the scope of the project and culminated in the production of documents that reflected the collective thinking and the views of diverse parliamentary schools.

The project also covered novel prerogatives and issues in parliamentary practices, such as ex-ante and ex-post public policy evaluation, the evaluation of the execution of laws, impact study, and particularly the diagnosis of the impact of public policies and legislations on societies, which are prerogatives and functions tightly linked to the exercise of the traditional prerogatives of parliaments, meaning legislation and government action control.

Equality between women and men in elected institutions was one of the components of the Twinning Project, which was reflected through the commitment to exchange expertise and the sharing of the practices that facilitate the access of women to representative and executive decision-making positions, to which testified the participation of the female members of the partnering institutions, mainly via the exchange of visits, and especially the implementation of the idea of creating a Forum of Women Parliamentarians as an open and flexible platform for dialogue between the female members of our partnering assemblies.

I will be pleased to launch alongside you, later today, the first step on the path of coordinating the efforts of the female members of the partner assemblies through inaugurating the proceedings of the Forum I just mentioned.

Ladies and gentlemen, 

The mechanisms of parliamentary diplomacy marked their presence in the project through the elaboration of a document that identifies the practices adopted by our partnering assemblies, particularly as regards the structure, roles, and working methods of the parliamentary friendship groups, which will enhance their performance, particularly amidst regional and international contexts that pose several challenges of which you are all aware.  

The Twinning Project also focused on administrative governance within Parliaments from the point of view of management, training, procedures, and assessing the performance and adherence of the parliamentary officers to the Codes of Conduct.

You are undoubtedly conscious of the roles of administrations in accompanying, assisting, and providing parliamentarians with information, as well as of the impact of the quality of this service on the productivity of parliaments.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The Twinning Project we are concluding today built on the First Twinning Project implemented between 2016 and 2018, which I was honored to launch alongside Mr. Claude Bartolone, the Speaker of the French National Assembly back then, and other colleagues, particularly from Belgium and the United Kingdom. For this project to benefit democracy in our countries and other partner and friend countries, we need to reflect on the possibility of sharing and internalizing it so that it contributes to enhancing parliamentary governance and increases the efficiency and productivity of elected institutions in government action control, legislation, public policy evaluation, and the implementation of gender equality in politics and within institutions, which impacts equality at the social level. 

In this respect, I affirm the readiness of the House of Representatives of the Kingdom of Morocco to engage in projects of sharing that we can agree on and explore new horizons for parliamentary partnership between us on new questions to follow up the roles of parliaments in addressing the challenges that our countries, and the international community in general, face.

Esteemed colleagues, 

Ladies and gentlemen, 

We are all aware of the magnitude of the geopolitical challenges that face us in the Euro-Mediterranean region and the world, including wars, blind terrorism and its alliance with separatism, conflicts, displacement, migration, the impacts of climate imbalances, and the spatial disparities within one country and between countries, which entice the foes of democracy and the adherents of regressive and introvert tendencies to attack democracy and its noble values.

In the face of said challenges, and amidst a context of uncertainty and fogginess that characterizes the world order in several geopolitical regions, holding onto democracy, its values, principles, institutions, relations, and political plurality remains the cornerstone of winning the battle of development, peace, and stability. Hence, democrats must not yield before the prosperous rhetoric of violence and extremism.

Esteemed colleagues, you are aware of the value of the partnerships linking the Kingdom of Morocco and the European Union and its member States; and although interests, benefits, commercial exchanges, and investments occupy a central position in said partnerships, their core are the values that we share, namely democracy, human rights, political plurality, openness, tolerance, cultural diversity under national unity, gender equality, and the State of institutions.

Ladies and gentlemen, 

Our country has accumulated several profound constitutional, institutional, and political reforms, which have contributed to making it a parliamentary democracy that has matured greatly as His Majesty King Mohammed VI, may Allah assist him, noted, and which renders the Kingdom of Morocco an essential pillar of regional and international stability amidst a regional context whose features you all know.

We built our democratic achievements on our historical depth and diplomatic creed based on non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries and respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States.

The Kingdom of Morocco has always been the gate of the East to the West and the bridge for the North to the South, particularly Africa, into which we are proudly anchored. The Kingdom is the land where meet the East and West, the North and South, with all their values, civilizations, and lifestyles.

You, ladies and gentlemen, are in the presence of a loyal and sincere partner committed to peace, democracy, and shared prosperity, and who aspires for further cooperation and more diverse partnerships.

The House of Representatives will always remain ready to pursue bilateral cooperation and multilateral coordination to anchor democracy in a way that enables us to address the challenges we face, together.

I welcome you once again and thank you for your presence, for which we will always be grateful. I also reiterate my thanks to our historical partner, the European Union, and its Embassy in Rabat, as well as to all the different officers of the partner parliaments who worked on ensuring the success of this chapter of our partnership.