OSCE, Alm.del - 2013-14 - Bilag 17: Nyhedsbrev fra Ambassadør Andreas Nothelle, uge 05, 2014

PC Brief Week 5, 2014This week, there were meetings of the Permanent Council (PC), the Forum for SecurityCooperation (FSC), several committees and the “First Preparatory Meeting of the 22ndOSCE Economic and Environmental Forum (EEF) ‘Responding to environmental chal-lenges with a view to promoting co-operation and security in the OSCE area’”.The PC debated presentations by the Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz in hiscapacity as Chairman of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, and by thePresident of the International Committee of the Red Cross Peter Mauer. In my reply tothe minister, I recalled the many welcome contributions by the Austrian side to the workof the OSCE PA, and referred to the upcoming Winter Meeting. I also highlighted the co-operation between the OSCE PA and PACE. Finally, I suggested that the minister mightsupport the OSCE PA’s efforts to strengthen its role within the organization and to ac-quire competences regarding senior appointments and the budget that are similar tothose of PACE. In conjunction with the weekly report by the OSCE chairmanship, thedelegations debated the possibility of an OSCE mediation in Ukraine. I stated that theOSCE PA, its president and its members stand ready to provide a helping hand to thechairmanship, in the event they decide to undertake such efforts.The FSC debated the OSCE Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Affairs. One of the in-troducers was the Head of the Maltese PA delegation, Christopher Fearne. Upon requestby the OSCE Secretariat and the FSC Coordinator for the Code of Conduct, I made an-other statement on the issue (PA.GAL/2/14).The EEF turned out to be extremely dry and technical event, with an obvious lack of in-terest from delegations, visible in particular on the second day of the meeting. There isstill no consensus on the 2014 OSCE budget, although the chairmanship has offered an-other compromise proposal.The interest in the upcoming PA Winter Meeting remains very high. We are in close con-tact with several ambassadors on issues related to the meeting, including with the am-bassador of Afghanistan. I also received some first comments, all of them positive, aboutthe announcement of the PA’s Helsinki+40 Project in the latest News from Copenhagen.

Special Representative