Special Representative
To:
PA President
and
PA Secretary General
PC Brief Week 40/41, 2014
During these two weeks I, together with much of the Vienna Liaison Office staff, was first at the
PA Autumn Meeting in Geneva and then at the Election Observation Mission in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. The OSCE ambassadors spent most of the first week at the Human Dimension
Implementation Meeting in Warsaw and many of traveled to Ukraine during the second. Con-
sequently, the number of meetings was somewhat limited compared to normal working weeks.
There were, however, meetings of the Permanent Council (PC), the Forum for Security Coop-
eration (FSC), the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom), and other committees, as well as sev-
eral meetings on technical issues and informal briefings and discussions. In addition, Marc
Carillet participated in two OSCE events in Bratislava: a conference on Secure Energy Supply
(“How to better protect energy networks from disruptions?”) and a meeting of the network for
Security Sector Governance and Reform (SSG/R).
At the meeting of the FSC the Russian Delegation referred to an alleged criticism of Ukraine
by PA President Kanerva. Marc Carillet corrected the inaccurate impression conveyed by the
Russian statement.
During the PC the Acting Chief Observer of the Observer Mission at Russian Checkpoints of
Gukovo and Donetsk, Paul Picard, presented the mission’s observations. While Russia inter-
preted the report as evidence of its non-interference in Ukraine, most other delegations point-
ed out that the mission’s mandate is to report about what happens inside the two checkpoints
only, which means that they are not allowed to include in their reports most of what happens
along the border, limiting the conclusiveness of the reports. The Director of the CPC, Amb.
Adam Kobieracki, delivered his last report to the PC (as his contract expires end of May 2015).
OSCE Secretary General Zannier reported about the Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) to
Ukraine. Unarmed aerial vehicles (UAVs = drones) and one ground control station have ar-
rived in Kiev and will reach Mariupol by the end of the week. All the necessary operational,
legal, and administrative procedures are well underway, as is the training of operators. Full
operations are expected to commence by end of October/beginning of November.
The OSCE Secretary General also presented the budget proposal along the same lines as he
did during the Geneva meeting of the PA’s Standing Committee, which he referred to in his
presentation. Russia, Azerbaijan, and Belarus argued that the institutions, in particular ODIHR,
cannot have their funding increased without consensus by participating States on their activi-
ties. These same countries expressed reluctance regarding the SG’s proposed “crisis man-
agement relief” fund. Roberto Montella briefly reported about the Geneva Autumn Meeting and
the meeting with ODIHR Director Link that took place during the conference, informing dele-
gates that despite several positive signals and steps taken by the ODIHR, they continue to
disregard the 1997 Cooperation Agreement on two core issues (namely, early joint PA-ODIHR
drafting and the sending of LTO reports).
Andreas Nothelle
Ambassador
October 14, 2014
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