The President
To:
Re.:
Standing Committee of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly
Facing the Migrant and Refugee Crisis
Copenhagen, 20 October 2015
Dear colleagues,
As we had the opportunity to discuss in Ulaanbaatar during our Autumn Meeting, the migrant and
refugee crisis is one of the main challenges we face nowadays in the OSCE. The rising number of
refugees and migrants coming to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea and Southeast Europe
presents the greatest humanitarian challenge we have faced in decades. The OSCE and the OSCE
Parliamentary Assembly, given their broad membership, can contribute to finding a coordinated
response to this crisis.
The Bureau of the OSCE PA will be meeting in Belgrade on 2 December prior to the opening of the
OSCE Ministerial Council Meeting. It is my intention to devote the Meeting of the Bureau in
Belgrade to discussion of the migrant and refugee Crisis and offer some concrete proposals to the
Ministerial Council during my address to the Foreign Ministers at the opening of the meeting of the
Council on 3 December.
As you know from the letter of Chairperson Isabel Santos the Assembly’s General Committee on
Human Rights, Democracy and Humanitarian Questions is considering the issue as one of its key
priorities for the upcoming year and is currently working on a comprehensive action-oriented policy
plan which may also be presented at the Belgrade Bureau.
Following the Bureau and Ministerial Council Meetings I will inform you of the outcome. I hope
that at the time of our next Winter Meeting in Vienna in February 2016 we can have a debate on
these issues.
Yours sincerely,
Ilkka KANERVA
_________________
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