The Grand Opening Ceremony
- Valentina Vodopivec
- May 6, 2017
- 2 min read
On 4th May 2017 the first Official session of the General Assembly – Opening ceremony – was held in Ljubljana in the Grand Hall of the Slovenian Parliament.
At the beginning of the Opening ceremony, the President of the Slovenian National Assembly, H. E. dr. Milan Brglez warmly welcomed states representatives. In his speech he touched upon all the agenda items and highlight the responsibility of states to regulate “grey zones” which still remain within the specific areas of all three agenda items.
After the speech of the President of the Slovenian National Assembly, the Presiding Officers took the floor and delivered their speech in which they stressed the importance of cooperation between states as a key to obtain international peace, stability, security and economic development. There is no doubt that this one-month session will be quite a challenge for states representatives. But nevertheless they should strive to achieve rational and sustainable solutions.
In the majority of the representatives’ speeches were expressed concerns about the environment we live in. Safe environment is something that states should have in mind while formulating decisions that will have effects also on our future generations. In respect of the agenda item No.1 – Antarctica – states agree they should stick to the provisions of the Antarctic Treaty where any measures of a military nature are prohibited. The representative of Cuba describing Antarctica as the continent of desire called for all countries to preserve the use of Antarctica for peaceful purposes. Later on, the representative of Finland and Sweden clearly stressed the necessity of ensuring comprehensive environmental protection and conservation of the Antarctic environment.
About the subject of Outer space the representatives of Italy and United Kingdom highlighted the importance of using space science and technology for the benefit of all humankind. The representative of United Kingdom also expressed her concerns about the increasing outer space activities with regard to the fact that private commercial interests in space are growing. On that point states agree on the need to intensively improve already existing space program.
A lot of attention received also the third agenda item. Representatives of Turkey, South Africa, Brazil, Ethiopia and Finland stressed the importance of solidarity and cooperation between states in international community. To this end the representative of Kazakhstan proposed the establishment of specific forum that would strengthen collaboration of states in addressing this problem and contribute to formulate appropriate solutions.
According to the delivered speeches yesterday at the Opening ceremony, we truly hope the Session will bring some positive results. It was more than obvious that states are willing to work together in order to achieve harmony and stability in international system. We can only wonder how many of this optimistic ideas will be put into practice.
Comments