International Parliamentary Assemblies

"Parliamentary foreign policy" is not just a matter for the German Bundestag’s specialised policy committees, but also for its delegations to international parliamentary assemblies. Above all, international parliamentary assemblies offer excellent, independent forums for dialogue in which parliamentarians from extremely diverse cultural backgrounds can discuss their experiences and ideas. Apart from this, interparliamentary bodies also have an important role in guaranteeing the parliamentary oversight of political processes and publicising the results achieved by such processes in the countries from which delegations come. At the same time, these bodies often generate new ideas and open up new fields of policy. For instance, during the early 1990s the NATO Parliamentary Assembly was already postulating that the countries of the former Eastern Bloc needed to be involved in future security concepts. The German Bundestag sends delegations to the following international parliamentary assemblies and regional forums: The Council of Europe, the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Conference of Speakers of European Union Parliaments, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean, the Black Sea Economic Cooperation and the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference.