Inaugural Address of President Riccardo Migliori2012 Annual Session || Monaco9 July 2012Official transcriptDear Colleagues,I am a little bit excited,First of all, I would like to address some greetings and make some suggestions that are alreadylargely familiar to you. The first thank goes to the delegation of my country, the Italiandelegation, to the members of Parliament and officials of the Chamber of Deputies and theSenate, without who, we, as the Italian delegation, would have not been able to do what we havedone over these years.The second thank goes, of course, to all those people, those voters in my city, the city ofFlorence, who, in forty years of political life, elected me district councilor, then city councilor,regional councilor and then, for 17 years, member of the Italian Parliament. I must thank all ofyou for this extraordinary experience that we are doing within the OSCE and for your trust inme.Yesterday I addressed the Socialist Group with the same words that Joao Soares said four yearsago at the meeting of the Popular Group, when, like me, he was elected President byacclamation:“I am very proud to be part and member of the Socialist group but, since thismoment, I will be the President only of the whole Assembly”.The same will go for me.It is obvious that I must also address some greetings. First, I would like to greet the activists ofthe OSCE, because they are such militants and activists of the OSCE, that in Copenhagen andVienna everyday keep the Parliamentary Assembly alive: from Spencer to Gustavo to Tina tothose who turn off the lights in the evening in Copenhagen. And to Andreas, to Roberto and toMarc, and to those who open the windows every morning in Vienna. Because we are what weare thanks to their daily work.And I would like to thank, because our Assembly is a little bit unique, we are not the Council ofEurope, we are not the European Parliament, and I say this with great respect – I would like tothank the thousands of women and men who, this morning, are present, active on the field, wherethere is a need for more rights, more democracy, more rule of law.I would like to greet, together with you, those who, this morning, have opened in Dushanbe theBorder Management Staff College for the new Afghan police; to those whom, in this moment, inBishkek, are giving life to the work of the Academy for prevention; to those whom, this

morning, are giving exams at the Tetovo University, where the flag of the OSCE flies, whereMacedonian and Albanian students have demonstrated that integration is possible.I would like to thank all men and women who daily remind us that we are not a “living roomassembly”; that we are more blue helmets of peace and co-operation than parliamentarians, andwho remind us that when we are here, we are not parliamentarians who become OSCE activists,but we are OSCE activists who are

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parliamentarians.As you can see, and I say this not with fake modesty, I do not have Alcee Hastings´s prestige andI do not have Goran Lennmarker´s experience; I have neither Joao Soares´ charisma nor PetrosEfthymiou´s culture, as we have heard today. But, like them, like you, I have a great love for ourmission. A love that especially a man among us, who is the history of the ParliamentaryAssembly, taught us. And he is the one that all of us in the Italian Delegation have alwaysconsidered the real leader of our delegation, Roberto Battelli.One day I was with Roberto in a slightly difficult situation: the polling we had to observe wasclosed because half an hour before a voter, who was also an activist of a party, was killed.Behind us were several tanks, 500 meters away, and we were surrounded by hundreds of peoplein a small square of a small village. I was a bit worried. The one who was extremely calm wasRoberto, because, he knew, and he knew already from that moment, after 20 years of activism atthe OSCE, that we are closer as an Organization to Indiana Jones than to chambers ofParliament. And he was and he is right. Because this is the great lesson of our extraordinaryorganization. I think that together we can do a great job. We started to do it here. I thank on yourbehalf Mr. Gardetto for this again extraordinary organization, and I stress ‘extraordinary’,because our friends in Monaco made us feel at home.I do not know if I will be the last male President of the Parliamentary Assembly, but we havealready taken steps forward on gender issues. We elected a young Kyrgyz parliamentarian andthis represents a great hope for the increase of the number of women within our Assembly andwithin the standing committee. We are experiencing a phase of expansion: many countries wouldlike to join the OSCE and it is strange that someone thinks of maybe quitting it. Because you see,we are not a big thing, but with God's help, we can be an important thing.As Mother Teresa said, we are one drop of water in the ocean of co-operation. But without thisdrop, hopes of peace and this ocean of co-operation and the work for human rights and securitywould definitely be poorer.I thank you for your attention and I invite you to briefly follow three points I’m suggesting. Weneed to emphasize the role of our missions. This is our essential medal. Yesterday, I thank you,Doris; the Delegation of Germany gave a great lecture on the need for reform. Andreas saidappropriate things; I want to say just one. The Assembly will not turn the other way: every timethe governmental side, the diplomatic part of our organization, takes away one Euro from themissions to give it to Vienna, we will protest. Because our core business is on the field, not onbureaucracy and on the meetings, which are important, but which cannot cause damage to thosewho are on the field every day.

And we need great election monitoring, without double standards, but also without any kind ofcompromise. We must have all possible compromises on security, but no compromise on theissues of human rights, because our credibility is at stake. And so we will have electionmonitoring in Belarus now; we will have monitoring in Georgia; we will have probablymonitoring in Ukraine; we will have on November 6thin USA for the presidential elections.We have to be many; as well, we need to be many in Tirana, where a very important meetingregarding the future of the OSCE will be held.I thank you because I know how much activism there is in your hearts, despite the difficultiesand scarce financial resources of parliaments. I know that many of you are already on vacationor are about to be. Other less lucky parliaments, such as mine, the Spanish, the Portuguese, andthe Greek one, will probably have to work also a part of August. But all of us must be in Tirana,in order to clarify what our future is and on which route we are heading.Finally, dear colleagues and dear friends, I want to tell you with great conviction that themediation capacity of our Assembly, as Petros has appropriately recalled this morning, cannot belimited to these meetings. We must be very ambitious. We need to give to the South Caucasus, inTransdniestria – as we are already doing well – the impression that peace, co-operation andrights – starting with those of oppressed minorities – are possible.If it is not us to do this work in Europe, who does it? That's why we are important.As it is important to recall here today, with a great act of solidarity with the Russian Delegationthat has already been done on behalf of all, for the deaths from the tragedy on the Black Seawhich hit that country; as to recall with feeling the Nigerian parliamentarians that died yesterday,burnt in a Christian church in Nigeria together with 90 other believers. It is still possible forpeople to die for environmental issues or matters relating to ethnic hatred or in violation ofreligious freedom, in our area or near our area. And if this light was not there – the light of theOSCE and our Parliamentary Assembly – the situation would be worse.Dear friends, we must be very united in this respect, because we are a great orchestra. Anorchestra with different tones; there is someone who plays an instrument, there is someone whoplays another instrument, but we all have the same score. The score of 1975: security, co-operation, rights.The 40th anniversary of Helsinki will also help us to understand, through a major initiative inSarajevo in 2014, to recall the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, that all of us arecommitted as militants, as activists for co-operation, to avoid the tragedies that have dividedEurope in fratricide during the last century. This is the Helsinki oath that we renew convincedthat our score is a great score. Because, you see, you can be reactionary if you react to regainyour freedom, you can be revolutionary if there is no other way to regain freedom, you can beconservative when it comes to preserving freedom, but, however, you are always progressive,because without freedom there can be no progress.