Special Representative
To:
PA President
and
PA Secretary General
PC Brief Weeks 45, 2014
During this week, there were three meetings of the Permanent Council (PC), as well as meetings of the Forum
for Security Cooperation (FSC), the Contact Group with the Asian Partners for Co-operation, the Helsinki +40
Working Group, other meetings of committees and informal working groups, a High-Level Retreat on Gender
and Inclusive Mediation, attended by PA member Johannes Koskinen (Finland), a two-day conference of the
High-Level Alliance Against Trafficking in Persons, an OSCE Chairmanship event “Information and Communi-
cation Technology Conflict Building Measures” (on Cyber Crime), and a meeting of the OSCE Academic Net-
work seminar on The Future of OSCE Field Operations.
The Permanent Council adopted a decision on the Transfer of Ownership to the Parties to the Agreement on
Subregional Arms Control, Annex 1B, Article IV of the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and
Herzegovina, heard a report regarding the Geneva discussions on Georgia, discussed gender, and then en-
tered into the usual exchange of views about the events in and around Ukraine and related polemics. The
same exchange took place during the FSC meeting, which prompted some ambassadors to urge again for
more constructive debates about what the OSCE can do to support a de-escalation of the conflict, particularly
in the interest of the people in the conflict-ridden area. The Special PC with the Head of the Special Monitoring
Mission (SMM) Apakan focused more on the immediate needs of the mission and resulting financial consider-
ations, leading to pledges of another 13 million Euros in extra-budgetary contributions by participating States.
I briefed the PC about the statement by PA Third Committee Chairperson Isabel Santos, who led the OSCE
PA’s limited election observation mission to the US mid-term elections. US Ambassador Daniel Baer replied
that some of the PA's criticism had equally been voiced by US President Barack Obama. He also expressed
regret that the ODIHR did not observe these elections, although having been invited by the US to do so. Ger-
many and Austria announced their bid for the OSCE Chairmanships in 2016 and 2017. A respective draft de-
cision has been circulated and will probably soon be adopted by the ministers through the so-called “Silence
Procedure”.
Regarding other drafts, the Chairmanship is still trying to collect reactions. There is a chance that consensus
will be found for some drafts, but time is limited for the Chairmanship if there is to be clarity before the start of
the Ministerial Council meeting in Basel. A draft on mediation was adamantly rejected by the delegation of
Armenia. Even the current version of the modalities for the meeting was rejected by Russia at this late stage,
because of a special speaking right given to NATO at the Ministerial Council. Several other countries also
objected to the current version of the modalities because of the issue of inviting or not inviting the Organization
of Turkic Speaking Countries.
The Helsinki+40 discussions with representatives of the OSCE’s academic network focused on the future of
the OSCE field presences. In this context, the SMM was seen as an interesting model for future operations
between peace-keeping and assistance to participating States in order to help them in the implementation of
commitments. The Special PC with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, at the occasion of his participation at
another conference in Vienna, saw pledges by all of their will for closer cooperation between the OSCE and
the UN, with the SMM mentioned as an example. Besides a condemnation of the recent "elections" in the
Donbas by the UN SG, the meeting had a character of a courtesy visit.
The Contact Group Meeting with the Asian Partners for Cooperation debated the security situation with re-
spect to fundamentalist terrorism. The two-day Alliance against Trafficking Meeting served as a reminder that
the OSCE is also dealing with topics other than Ukraine and to promote the PA's work in this area. The same
is true for the very technical expert conference on Confidence Building Measures in Cyber Space.
Andreas Nothelle
Ambassador, November 10, 2014
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