OSCE, Alm.del - 2012-13 - Bilag 23: Nyhedsbrev fra Ambassadør Andreas Nothelle, uge 11, 2013

PC Brief Week 11, 2013This week, meetings of the PC, the FSC and their subsidiary bodies took place, as well as theSecurity Day on Afghanistan and the informal ambassadorial working group dealing with the Hel-sinki+40 Process. Roberto Montella was absent participating in PA President Migliori’s visit toMongolia.The Security Day consisted of an enormous number of presentations by keynote speakers andexperts on the situation in the country. The presentations made clear once more how serious thesituation is, especially in light of the fading out of the military engagement by the allies. The meet-ing also confirmed that the current level of activities might well be the limit of what the OSCE cando, even if more would be desirable.The PC debated a presentation by the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksey Y. Meshkovalong the usual dividing lines. ODIHR Director Amb. Lenarcic delivered his regular report on theactivities of the Office. A large part of his written text and of his oral presentation was devoted tothe ODIHR’s financial difficulties and the lack of readiness by participating States to provide theODIHR with seconded election observers. He did not mention the issue of ODIHR-PA electionobservation, while most delegations did refer to it. I used the opportunity to refer to the PA’s posi-tions on the OSCE budget, as well as the current discussions in the PA’s Transparency Commit-tee. The text of my statement is attached.Canada replied that they wanted to flag that there is impatience from capitals and parliamentaryassembly delegations members, “some of whom are elected, some of whom are not elected, de-pending on the system of each country”, and asked the Chairmanship to get involved to help.Canada added that suggestions to be more transparent vis-a-vis the PA “are not helpful”, andthat they did not ask this of the PA vis-a-vis the Permanent Council. Secretary General Amb.Zannier also criticized what my statement said about the budgetary procedure, announcing thathe would come back to the statement in a later meeting.Azerbaijan has asked to downgrade the mission in Baku to an Office of Project Coordinator withinone week, announcing that failure to comply would have serious consequences for the function-ing of the organization.To a large extent, the discussions in the Helsinki+40 Working Group were a repetition of whatwas said in the first meeting, with the notable exception of the Russian statement, which clearlyexpressed dissatisfaction about the perceived dysfunctionality of the OSCE.

Special Representative