OSCE, Alm.del - 2010-11 (1. samling) - Bilag 26: Report of Petur H. Blondal, Special Representative on the OSCE budget , for the OSCE PA Winter Meeting.

REPORT OF PETUR H. BLONDAL, SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE ON THE OSCEBUDGET, FOR THE OSCE PA WINTER MEETINGVienna, 24-25 February 2011I was appointed Special Representative on the OSCE budget by the President of the PA inSeptember 2006. My task is to review work on draft OSCE budgets and to report to the As-sembly President and Treasurer.My mandate includes to:gather information and follow budgetary developments in OSCE governmental struc-turesact as a focal point for Assembly recommendations on political and managementquestions related to the OSCE budgetencourage discussion within the Parliamentary Assembly on the effective use ofOSCE budgetary resources1. Recent OSCE developments:- The 2011 OSCE unified budget (UB) was adopted after the deadline, but before the end ofthe calendar year, in a special session of the Permanent Council convened during the re-cess. This development means that fund managers will be able to operate on a 12-monthbasis, contrary to years in the past decade in which the organization was unable to efficientlyoperate due to delays in the adoption of a budget.- The 2011 UB amounts to 150,764,700 Euros. It is regrettable to see that the budget level isthe same as 2010 and nominally the lowest since 2000. The budget has, in real terms, sub-stantially decreased due to inflation. In 2003, the OSCE budget was 185,7 million Euros.Since then, the OSCE has developed its activities and ODIHR’s budget for elections has sky-rocketed (the latter increasing by more than 50%). The draft Astana action plan will be usedas a basis for future activities, which will increase further the gap between tasks to-be-completed and available resources.- The closure of the OSCE Office in Minsk will affect general spending.- The proposals made by the Ad Hoc Committee on Transparency, as well as those that Imade on accountability and transparency in the OSCE, have not been debated before or dur-ing the Astana Summit.- A lack of transparency remains in the extra-budgetary funding of some activities, includingkey ones. For example, parts of the follow-up to the Summit—a sort of ”Corfu 2”—will be out-sourced to a think-tank remunerated through extra-budgetary funding.2. My recent activities include:- I participated in the visit of the Ad Hoc Committee on Transparency and Accountability toVienna on 6 September 2010, both in my capacity as member of the committee and as Spe-cial Representative for the OSCE budget.- I conducted a "virtual" visit to the OSCE Presence in Albania. I did follow-up interviews tomy 2007 field visit with key OSCE staff in Tirana via conference calls last November (AnnexI).1

Annex IFollow-up Report of the Special Representative on the OSCE Budget, Dr. Pétur H.Blöndal, on the activities of the OSCE Presence in AlbaniaIn 2007, I visited the OSCE Presence in Albania in my capacity as Special Representative onthe OSCE Budget in order to acquaint myself with the operation of the OSCE presence andits activities and see for myself how the organization’s resources were being used. My mainpoint of interest was the fight against human trafficking. Last November, I followed up on thatvisit through teleconferences with staff of the OSCE Presence in Albania in order to ascertainwhat progress had been made on some of the activities I had seen in operation. The activi-ties I was particularly interested in were the civil registry modernization, border and migrationand other operations to fight human trafficking.My interlocutors were Mr Hartmut Puerner, Head of Governance in Economic andEnvironmental Issues, Mr Frank Nan, Project Manager, Civil Registry Modernization, Mr JackBell, Head of the Security Co-operation Department, Ms Darcie Nielsen, Head ofGovernance in Economic and Environmental Issues, and Ms Juliana Rexha, National Anti-Trafficking Officer. I am thankful for their time and input.Civil Registry ModernizationThe project had four main objectives: the establishment of a national registry; a registry ofaddresses; a data protection framework; and raising public awareness. Work on the nationalregistry started in 2007 and was completed in 2009. Streets have been given names andhouses have been assigned numbers. Almost all citizens have been registered in an elec-tronic system. The work resulted in significant improvements in the voting lists for the 2009elections. The same system is also used for issuing passports.As to the registration of addresses, 3.9 million inhabitants out of an estimated population of4.2 million have been registered and can be linked to an address. There is an interconnec-tion between the national registry of civil status and national addresses. The project was dueto end in December 2010 and the objective was to have registered 85% of all inhabitants atan address.As to the data protection framework, a data protection authority representative was appoint-ed in November 2008 and the data protection framework was completed at the end of 2009.And as to raising public awareness, there has been a lot of TV and radio coverage and flyershave been distributed so people are aware of that they should register. The campaign hasalso sought to make the public aware of the data protection framework.

Public services have improved considerably although it has proven to be a little bit difficult forpeople to understand that it has advantages for them to be registered to an address. It isnow, for example, possible to determine the identity of a person with no passport throughcross-checking their fingerprint with the electronic system. This can have applications in thefight against human trafficking as well as in efforts to integrate the Roma into society. Thereis also an effort to register buildings, which is funded by the EU as well as OSCE. It is crucialfor the strengthening of property rights.Border and MigrationSince 2007, Albania has been a member of NATO, which means stricter border control re-quirements. A database system for wanted persons and stolen vehicles is in place. There isalso a partnership with the police on the Kosovo side of the border, who speak the same lan-guage, which makes things easier. Cross-border cooperation with Greece and Kosovo is go-ing well.Work is being done on the sea border as well. A sea radar system is now operational alt-hough the border police have not received their new boats yet. The Ministry of Defence, Cus-toms, Fisheries and Ministry of Tourism are all using the same system and have a databaseto cross-check information. Patrols will be carried out with Italian boats until Albania has thecapacity to guard its sea border itself.As to the fight against human trafficking, the flow over the sea borders is decreasing and be-ing redirected through the land borders. The OSCE presence feels that the situation is slowlyimproving since it is now easier to identify people. Victims of human trafficking are mostly Al-banians and some Afghans passing through Albania from Afghanistan, but there has been adecrease in numbers. The EU is currently funding operations at eight new crossing points.There is a greater use of information technology at all crossing points.The border police have things in place after considerable improvements that got them NATOacceptance. However, a new state police law detached the border police from the regularstate police, which has had negative effects. Attempts are being made to get the border po-lice up to standards.Human TraffickingAlthough there is a greater focus on combating human trafficking at the borders, less atten-tion is paid to increasing internal trafficking within the country. Victims exploited internally arenot recognised as trafficking cases (e.g. begging children, car washing, etc.) even though Al-bania has ratified the Council of Europe convention on Action against Trafficking in HumanBeing, which makes no distinction between internal and external human trafficking.The problem is now concentrated on the Greek and Kosovo border whereas the sea bordersare not a problem anymore. The problem with Greece is that the children caught are broughtback to Albania without documentation, hence it is very difficult to see if they are traffickingvictims or illegal immigrants. With regard to Italy, the situation has improved and speedboatsare no longer allowed around the borders.

There are positive changes concerning government commitment and cooperation withNGOs. Nevertheless, the government closed down human trafficking shelters in October,although pressure from the international community led to their being reopened. Taking careof victims is mostly done by donor-funded NGOs. A positive development is that the govern-ment has started funding NGOs and the OSCE presence has worked with them.The situation of the Roma has improved and Roma children are being registered in greaternumbers than before. Before, parents only had 25 days to register newborns, failing whichthey would have to go through an expensive court procedure to do so with the result thatmany Roma children went unregistered. The time to register has now been increased to 60days, and 90 if the child is born outside the country. More widespread registration of newbornRoma significantly reduces their vulnerability to human trafficking. As I pointed out in my re-port on my 2007 visit, OSCE activities in the areas of civil registration and human traffickingthus greatly complement each other.ConclusionsWhen I visited the country in 2007, streets did not have names and buildings had no num-bers but with the OSCE’s civil registry modernization, this situation has changed dramatical-ly. The benefits of the project are manifold: for democracy by improving voter lists, for exam-ple, and for the economy as buildings and other real estate that are registered can be collat-eralized and used as security for loans and property rights are strengthened. The fightagainst human trafficking will benefit as the vulnerability of the population in general and theRoma in particular is reduced as people who are registered are easier to identify. In my view,the organization deserves a lot of credit for setting up this project and the organization’s re-sources have been put to good use through this project. Considerable progress also seemsto have been made in respect of human trafficking and border security.At the same time, the civil registry modernization project is now coming to an end and pro-vided its objectives have been attained, resources should now be withdrawn and directedsomewhere else where there is a greater need for them. There is a tendency towards a cer-tain degree of inertia when it comes to the budgetary allocations of organizations like theOSCE with funding to individual activities and missions continuing without sufficient attentionto actual need. As parliamentarians, one of our roles is to work against such tendencies inorder to make sure that the funds allocated by our national parliaments to the OSCE areused both effectively and efficiently.