Special Representative
To:
PA President
and
PA Secretary General
PC Brief Week 6/7, 2016
During these weeks there were routine meetings of the Permanent Council (PC), the
Forum for Security Co-operation, the Preparatory Committee (PrepComm), the Advisory
Committee on Management and Finance (ACMF), the Security and the Human Dimen-
sion committees, other informal meetings, as well as a High Level Military Doctrine
Seminar and a Conference on Combating Intolerance against Muslims. In addition, I
spent two days in Warsaw in meetings held by SG Montella with ODIHR and the Polish
PA delegation.
The PC approved a decision on the extension of the mandate of the Special Monitoring
Mission to Ukraine (SMM) for another year. It also debated an address by the Deputy
Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Araz Azimov and reports by the head of the
OSCE Mission to Serbia, as well as the three Chairs of the three topical committees,
and discussed the usual Current Issues.
Many delegations requested meetings with us in order to discuss issues pertinent to the
upcoming PA Winter Meeting, demonstrating a high interest from the governmental
side. In my absence, Marc Carillet also briefed the Permanent Council about the Meet-
ing. He also expressed condolences regarding the latest bomb blast in Ankara, referring
to a press release by President Kanerva.
The High Level Military Doctrine seminar managed to go beyond the usual exchanges
that take place on a weekly basis in the Forum for Security Co-opreation. Delegates
refrained from reading prepared statements, and participants from capitals engaged in
intensive exchanges. While the diverging narratives of the crisis in and around Ukraine
and the other conflicts in the OSCE provided a constant backdrop to the discussions,
the military-to-military dialogue showed its promise when tackling the many challenges
facing the OSCE in the politico-military sphere. This is related to the aspirations of many
participating States to re-issue and modernize the Vienna Document.
The visit to Warsaw has been covered in the News from Copenhagen. It also served as
an opportunity to explore closer cooperation with the ODIHR on issues outside election
observation, including a better coordination of the PA’s contributions to the annual Hu-
man Dimension Implementation Meeting.
Andreas Nothelle
Ambassador
February 19, 2016