Special Representative
To:
PA President
and
PA Secretary General
PC Brief Week 20, 2015
This week, there were meetings of the Permanent Council (PC), including a Special PC
with the Foreign Minister of Spain, José Manuel García-Margallo, the Forum for Security
Co-operation (FSC), the Preparatory Committee (PrepComm), and a two-day ambassa-
dorial retreat.
The PC did not take decisions. In addition to the debates on the crisis in and around
Ukraine, there was a round of statements on the recent violent events in Kumanovo, for-
mer Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. In this context I referred to the pertinent Press
Statement by PA President Ilkka Kanerva issued on Monday of the same week, and an-
nounced the upcoming visit of the PA’s Special Representative on South East Europe,
Roberto Battelli, to the country.
The ambassadorial retreat dealt with preparations for a possible informal High Level
Meeting in July in the context of the 40
th
Anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act, and held a
first debate on possible “deliverables” for the Ministerial Council in Belgrade in Decem-
ber. The Serbian Chair concluded that the High Level Meeting will now be planned for
July 10 in Helsinki, immediately after the PA’s Annual Session.
The FSC approved a decision regarding an OSCE Meeting to Review the Implementation
of OSCE Practical Assistance Projects on Small Arms and Light Weapons and Stockpiles
of Conventional Ammunition, which will take place on July 14 and 15, 2015, in Vienna.
The PrepComm is currently debating the political guidelines (“Program Outline”) for the
draft 2016 budgets for the different parts of the OSCE that will be drafted later this year
under the ACMF (Advisory Committee on Management and Finance) chairmanship of
Germany. Several delegations complained about the non-inclusion of the budget of the
Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM), which veils the actual size of the Unified
Budget. With the SMM it would increase by a third. The pending revision of the Scales of
Contributions also constitutes a major obstacle to a smooth adoption of a budget.
Andreas Nothelle
Ambassador
May 18, 2015