OSCE, Alm.del - 2012-13 - Bilag 35: Nyhedsbrev fra Ambassadør Andreas Nothelle, uge 28, 2013

PA PresidentandPA Secretary GeneralJuly 12, 2013PC Brief Week 28, 2013This week, meetings of the PC, the Preparatory Committee, the Economic and Environ-mental Committee and the Human Dimension Committee took place, as well as the (2nd)Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting (SHDM) on Rule of Law in the Promotion andProtection of Human Rights and the Annual (FSC) Discussion on the Implementation ofthe Code of Conduct.The PC approved its recommendation to the Ministers to appoint Astrid Thors (Finland)as OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. The ministerial decision will be tak-en through the “Silence Procedure”, meaning that it will be decided if by noon of July 17,2013, no country has “broken the silence”, i.e. objected to the decision.The PC meeting also debated the last report by the parting High Commissioner Amb.Knut Vollebaek, leading to over 30 statements commending the work Amb. Vollebaekhas performed. In my statement I welcomed that the High Commissioners, includingAmb. Vollebaek, have always had an open ear for recommendations stemming from thePA, and have explicitly followed up on them. This prompted the High Commissioner tocommend the PA’s support and collaboration with him, in particular regarding the Bozen-Bolzano recommendations, which the PA – according to him – supported more than anyparticipating State.In the SHDM, we distributed a compilation of relevant PA decisions. Unfortunately, de-spite its title, issues of rule of law remained largely undiscussed in the meeting. Instead,most participants voiced their usual positions on a number of human rights issues. In mystatement, I called for the creation and strengthening of democratically legitimized institu-tions in the international community, upon which the representative of the Council of Eu-rope pointed at the Council’s institutions, most of which are based on elections in theParliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.The discussion on the Code of Conduct was characterized by the usual conflicts of thefirst dimension, opening with a lengthy debate between Russia and the U.S. on NATOexpansion. Much of the programming actually had very little to do with the Code of Con-duct, and any substantial discussion was overshadowed by the repeated disagreementsbetween the member states on issues barely related to the implementation of the Codeitself.

Special Representative