OSCE, Alm.del - 2012-13 - Bilag 22: Nyhedsbrev fra Ambassadør Andreas Nothelle, uge 9-10, 2013

PC Brief Weeks 9/10, 2013During these two weeks, many ambassadors were busy in events that either took place outside ofVienna, like the anniversary of the High Commissioner on Minorities in The Hague, or were notlinked to the OSCE, like the Conference of the Alliance of Civilizations. In addition, the OSCE’stwo-day Annual Implementation Meeting (AIAM - on commitments in the military field) took place,preceded by the first of this year’s Security Days under the title “Developing a New Approach toConventional Arms Control”, and organized by the OSCE Secretary General. In addition, therewere meetings of the PC, the FSC, the Contact Group with the Mediterranean Partners for Coop-eration and the PC committees. Part of the time, Roberto Montella accompanied President Migliorito Montenegro and to The Hague.The AIAM, as well as the Security Day, demonstrated that the Vienna Document on confidencebuilding measures is widely viewed as either flawed or not sufficiently implemented, partly due tothe significant and growing distrust and lack of transparency between member states, particularlybetween the US/EU and Russia. Much of the debates were highly technical and specific. SeveralWestern countries deplored the lack of progress made during the Dublin Ministerial Council meet-ing last year. They called for a renewed commitment to modernizing the Vienna Document includ-ing the following specific recommendations: reduction of threshold values for prior notification ofmilitary activities; extension of the type of military activities subject to notification; strengthening therisk-reduction mechanism; extension of confidence- and security-building measures to other secu-rity-relevant areas.The Security Day “Developing a New Approach to Conventional Arms Control” at the Austrian Na-tional Defense Academy discussed the future of arms control in Europe in the face of stalled pro-gress within the pre-existing regime, including the CFE, the Vienna Document, and the Open SkiesTreaty. One of the major problems identified by the experts was a lack of knowledge, publicity, andsense of urgency on the topic of arms control in Europe. They agreed that the CFE was not feasi-ble as it currently stands, and that it must be significantly changed to contain less controversialmeasures and lower its standards.Both PC meetings were rather short in order to enable participation in the aforementioned events.The mandate of the current Representative on the Freedom of the Media Dunja Mijatovic was ex-tended. I briefed the PC about the work of the Transparency Committee and about the visit byPresident Migliori to Montenegro. The Director of the Conflict Prevention Center, when deliveringthe report of the OSCE Secretary General (SG), also referred to a meeting the SG had held withthe Foreign Minister of Libya. He did not mention that at this occasion the Minister handed a letterover to him, which was addressed to President Migliori and formally requests the status of a part-ner. I supplemented the information given, and the PC Chair replied that Libya was required toaddress such a request to the Chairmanship and that they had not received such a request.

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