Duma speaker to send G8 peers legal acts sharing request Monday

September 17

Russian State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov promised to call on G8 parliamentary leaders to share their national legal acts on terrorism and illegal migration within the G8.

"As the speaker of the G8 presiding nation, tomorrow I will prepare that decision and send it to all G8 parliamentary leaders, after which we will begin the meaningful work on information sharing," he said after the meeting of Vladimir Putin with G8 heads of parliaments in Sochi.

He recalled that on Saturday in St. Petersburg, all G8 parliamentary leaders vowed to exchange their national legal acts on terrorism and illegal migration and set up an advisory council of appropriate parliamentary committee members, scientists, and public figures to share latest knowledge on energy efficiency and energy saving.

Gryzlov called the G8 parliamentary meeting in St. Petersburg "a summit of laws," which followed the heads-of-state "summit of ideas." This is because the G8 leaders met to make decisions, while lawmakers gathered to discuss how these decisions could be translated into laws on ensuring global energy security and countering new threats and challenges, he explained.

He underscored the importance of energy security by citing expert data stating that fossil commodity reserves would be depleted in 20 to 25 years. Energy demand is going to grow by 50%, he said, with more than two-thirds of energy consumed by motor vehicles, while 2.4 billion people around the world are still deprived of fuel and 1.6 billion of electricity.

"We must help these countries by advancing new technology there," he said.

The G8 parliamentary meeting in St. Petersburg led to a decision to provide energy innovations on alternative energy sources, such as hydropower, solar, wind and biofuel energy, to other countries "at the first step, in the form of information".

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