OSCE, Alm.del - 2012-13 - Bilag 34: Nyhedsbrev fra Ambassadør Andreas Nothelle, uge 23, 2013

This week was very much a routine PC week with meetings of the Permanent Coun-cil (PC), the Forum for Security Cooperation (FSC), the Contact Group with the AsianPartners for Cooperation, the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) and other subsidi-ary bodies, as well as informal gatherings.The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Edward Nalbandian briefedthe PC on the work plan of the Armenian Chairmanship over the Committee of Minis-ters of the Council of Europe. This report, along with the report by the OSCE ProjectCoordinator in Ukraine and the issues debated under Current Issues, brought no newdevelopments. The Coordinator’s mandate was routinely extended until the end ofthe year.The PrepCom concluded its consideration of the so-called “Program Outline”, whichis meant to give political guidelines for the establishment of the draft 2014 UnifiedBudget later this year. The governmental structures of the OSCE have pointed outthat another extension of the zero-nominal growth policy will have to lead to a down-size of OSCE activities. The incoming Chairmanship (Switzerland) will now prepare aperception paper to serve a s a basis for further discussions.It seems that at least one delegation is asking for a new round of candidates for thesuccession of Knut Vollebaek as High Commissioner on National Minorities, thusblocking the Finnish candidate who had received by far the highest amount of sup-port from delegations. This occurred after an initial round of presentations by all threecandidates resulted in little enthusiasm among many delegates.I had an opportunity to discuss at length the PA’s concerns about ODIHR’s non-compliance with core elements of the 1997 Cooperation Agreement with the newambassadors of the EU and of Romania.

Special Representative