Special Representative
To:
PA President
and
PA Secretary General
PC Brief Week 42, 2014
This week, there were meetings of the Permanent Council (PC), the Forum for Security Coop-
eration (FSC), the Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) and other committees, as well as sever-
al meetings on technical issues and informal briefings and discussions, the most relevant be-
ing the Ambassadorial Working Group on Helsinki+40 and the Working Group on Legal Per-
sonality of the OSCE.
The PC heard reports by the chairpersons of the three PC committees, as well as reports by
the Head of Mission to Moldova and the EU Border Assistance Mission to Ukraine-Moldova.
While Western delegations expressed regret over the repeated postponement of the 5+2 talks,
Russia welcomed those held in the 1+1 format (Chisinau and Tiraspol). There were 12 items
under “Current Issues”, most of them mutual accusations directly or indirectly related to the
ongoing crisis between Russia and the West. As the Chairmanship did not want to discuss the
outcome of the Election Observation in Bosnia and Herzegovina under this agenda item, I
made a statement under “Any other business”, reporting on the preliminary post-election
statement by the Special Coordinator for these elections, Roberto Battelli, and on PA-ODIHR
cooperation during the observation. In particular, I highlighted that while the ODIHR offered
some improvements in cooperation on the ground, it continues to limit the extent of this coop-
eration under the Cooperation Agreement, most prominently by refusing to send the Long
Term Observer reports to the Special Coordinator -- a breach of the clear wording of the Co-
operation Agreement -- and by refusing to enter into formal negotiations on a text for the
statement before leaders of other parliamentary delegations have arrived. In their brief replies,
Bosnia and Herzegovina welcomed the work of the OSCE observers and the US expressed
their wish for good future cooperation between the PA and ODIHR.
Upon request by the chairmanship I delivered a report on the PA’s Moscow Helsinki+40 semi-
nar to the Helsinki+40 Working Group. There was no subsequent debate. During the meeting
of the informal working group on Legal Personality of the OSCE, its coordinator, retired Danish
ambassador John Bernhard, introduced a proposal for a “draft convention plus” on Privileges
and Immunities and Legal Personality of the OSCE. This proposal tries to combine the draft
convention with elements of a constituent document in order to overcome Russian opposition
(Russia does not want to approve the convention without a parallel agreement on a constituent
document). These additional elements, which most notably consist of a paragraph on the
structure of the OSCE, do not mention the Parliamentary Assembly. I strongly rejected any
text that defines the OSCE’s structure without appropriately describing the role and status of
the PA.
I also had an opportunity to brief the staff of the incoming Serbian OSCE chairmanship about
the OSCE PA, its role and its political positions.
Andreas Nothelle
Ambassador
October 21, 2014
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