GENEVA (WAM)
Saqr Ghobash, Speaker of the Federal National Council (FNC), and the UAE Parliamentary Division’s delegation in the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), participated in the coordination meeting of the Arab Group in the IPU, which was held on the sidelines of the UAE participation in the 149th IPU Assembly and related meetings and the 214th session of the Governing Council in Geneva.
Speakers of Gulf legislative councils and Arab parliaments attended the meeting.
Dr. Ali Rashid Al Nuaimi, Arab Group’s Representative in the IPU Executive Committee, presented a report on the results of the 294th session of the IPU's Executive Committee and Financial Committee.
He said the meeting approved the IPU budget for 2025 based on the IPU's five new interconnected strategic objectives for 2022 - 2026.
The 2025 budget will see an increase of 3 percent due to the rise in annual contributions from member parliaments. This is based on the previous decision of the Governing Council to increase contributions by 3 percent during the years 2023-2026, he added.
The report presented an overview of the voluntary contributions of parliaments to the IPU's budget, including the voluntary contribution of the Federal National Council, which provided an amount of one million dollars to support programmes for combating terrorism and extremism.