OSCE, Alm.del - 2008-09 - Bilag 31: PC Brief Weeks 17/18, 2009

Permanent Council Brief Weeks 17/18, 2009During those two weeks, which began with the OSCE PA Bureau Meeting in Lisbon, meetings of thePC, the FSC, the Contact Groups with Partners, the PrepCom and of other committees took place. Inaddition, the Chairmanship organized an “Ambassadorial Retreat” (attended by most delegations,not always in the person of their ambassador) on the subject of proposals for a future securitystructure in Europe, but to which PA representatives were not invited under the pretext that it waspurely inter-governmental.After the retreat, I received a thorough briefing about the meeting by the PC Chair Amb. Marinaki. Ihad accepted the offer to be briefed after having made clear that this does not mean that weacquiesce in our exclusion from the meeting. At that occasion, Amb. Marinaki once more confirmedthat also the upcoming informal Ministerial Meeting in Corfu on the same subject is planned withoutPA participation. She also underlined that no delegation had raised the issue during the retreat.The PC approved to have the Accounting Chamber of Ukraine act as the new “External Auditor” ofthe organization.No progress has been made on the issue of an OSCE presence in Georgia. Also, Georgia is blockingthe agenda of the upcoming Annual Security Review Conference (ASRC – scheduled for 23 and 24June 2009, Vienna) which the Chairmanship sees as the next step towards the Corfu Meeting. Theatmosphere between the Russian Federation and the other participating States already beingdifficult, exemplified by Russia reading out a long list of allegations designed to demonstrate a poorstate of Media Freedom in the USA, it worsened further after the announcement that Russianauthorities will take over the border management for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. On the occasionof a presentation by Romania’s Foreign Minister in the PC, several delegations also mentionednegatively that Romania issues passports to persons in neighbouring countries. In this context, Russiaaccused the EU of applying double standards, because it did not also raise the issue in the PC.Bulgaria has announced its upcoming parliamentary elections on 5 July.

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