June 30 Is International Day of Parliamentarism

The International Day of Parliamentarism was established in 2018 by the UN General Assembly and is celebrated on June 30.

The idea of its establishment was put forward at the 137th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), held in St Petersburg in October 2017.

June 30 was the starting point in the history of international parliamentarianism, because on this day in 1889, the first international conference of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the largest and oldest association of parliamentarians in the world, took place in Paris.

The main body of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) is its biannual Assembly. The assemblies are usually attended by more than 1,200 delegates.

At present, of the 193 Member States of the United Nations, 79 countries have a bicameral system, and 114 countries have a unicameral system. Thus, the world’s 272 existing chambers have about 46,000 members.