OSCEs Parlamentariske Forsamling 2018-19 (2. samling)
OSCE Alm.del Bilag 6
Offentligt
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REPORT OF THE SECRETARY GENERAL
OF THE OSCE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY
Mr. Roberto Montella
AUTUMN MEETING
Morocco, 4
–
6 October 2019
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Report of OSCE PA Secretary General, Marrakech, October 2019
REPORT OF OSCE PA SECRETARY GENERAL ROBERTO MONTELLA
Marrakech, October 2019
It is the
first time
that the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly holds a statutory meeting in
a partner
country and I wish to express my deepest gratitude to the authorities of the Kingdom of Morocco
for hosting us. Many of the challenges that the OSCE region is facing are intrinsically twined with
global challenges. By organizing such an important meeting at the frontier of the OSCE region, the
OSCE PA and its partner countries wish to send a clear message: we must
make use of all forms of
co-operation to revive effective multilateralism,
to address common threats and to benefit from
common opportunities.
Since my last report in July this year, the International Secretariat has continued to
support the
activities of our Members,
to fine tune our excellent
co-operation
with the governmental branch of
the OSCE and to further upgrade our co-operation with our external partners. I have also focused on
streamlining and optimizing
some of our internal operational
procedures and human resources
to
better adapt to evolving needs.
Activities of the International Secretariat in support of Members
Our President and Members have continued to be very active in the last three months. After the Annual
Session, I accompanied President Tsereteli to the High Tatras region of Slovakia for a
meeting of
OSCE Foreign Ministers
which aimed at holding an
informal and more direct discussion on
current challenges
and on promoting convergence over the way forward. With the governmental
branch of the OSCE suffering from a misuse of the consensus rule and a zero-nominal growth in its
financial resources, I see a stronger role profiling for parliamentary diplomacy and its exclusive
toolbox.
On 16 September,
President Tsereteli
addressed the
opening of the ODIHR Human Dimension
Implementation Meeting (HDIM),
a unique event that brings together governments and civil society
from all participating States to evaluate progress and outstanding challenges related to democracy and
human rights in the OSCE region. Our President was joined by the Chair of the Third Committee,
Kyriakos Hadjiyianni, and by our newly appointed Special Representative on Civil Society
Engagement, Pia Kauma. At the margins of the HDIM, our Assembly organized for the
first time a
side event focused on human rights recommendations by parliamentarians.
The event managed
to raise awareness on their vital contribution to the consolidation of democratic processes and the
upholding of human rights.
We have also supported the
President’s visits
to Kyiv, Ukraine, on the occasion of the
inauguration
of the newly elected Verkhovna Rada
and to enable a number of high-level meetings with local
dignitaries as well as with the OSCE Project Co-ordinator and the OSCE SMM; to Copenhagen,
Denmark, for a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and our
own Treasurer Peter Juel-
Jensen;
to Andermatt, Switzerland, for the meeting of the
PA Silk Road Support Group;
to Nur-
Sultan, Kazakhstan, for an address to the
Conference of Eurasian Speakers of Parliament
and high-
level meetings with the country’s authorities; and to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, for an important
international
seminar on parliamentary oversight
(an issue increasingly under our lenses for future
activities), and other productive bilateral meetings.
Vice-President Lord Peter Bowness
represented
the Assembly at an OSCE
Security Sector Governance and Reform
event in London, while
Vice-
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Report of OSCE PA Secretary General, Marrakech, October 2019
President Margareta Cederfelt
represented the PA in the
29
th
Economic Forum
in Krynica, Poland
as well as in the
Cetinje Parliamentary Forum in Montenegro.
In July,
Third Committee Chair Kyriakos Hadjiyianni travelled to Mariupol, Ukraine,
to follow-
up to on previous
fact-finding missions
which looked at the dire humanitarian situation in conflict-
affected areas. Together with
former Chair Margareta Kiener Nellen
and accompanied by the
SMM, he accessed villages directly on the line of contact to gain first-hand information and updates
on the most pressing humanitarian needs. He also met with the main humanitarian stakeholders
operating in the region.
Our new
Special Representative on fighting Corruption, Irene Charalambides,
started her
mandate by paying an
official visit
to
Vienna
on 17-18 September, holding meetings with relevant
OSCE executive structures and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
to open new
avenues for co-operation on this important priority for the OSCE, as clearly stated in the Luxembourg
Declaration.
During this reporting period, the Secretariat also organized an important
Election Observation
Mission for the early parliamentary elections in Ukraine
on 21 July. It has been a great effort, with
an overall participation of over fifty PA members deployed all around the country under the leadership
of Special Co-ordinator
Ilkka Kanerva
and Head of Delegation
Sereine Mauborgne.
Strengthening the OSCE PA’s functioning
I thank the Standing Committee for approving our 2019-2020 budget and I take the opportunity to
express the deepest gratitude to former Treasurer Doris Barnett
for her outstanding contribution
in ensuring an adequate planning and supervision of our financial resources over the past years. I also
wish a productive mandate to our new Treasurer Peter Juel-Jensen.
The additional resources provided to the International Secretariat enable us to better support the vast
range of activities embarked upon by the OSCE PA. In this regard, I continue to be grateful to Italy
and Germany for seconding respectively three and one staff member to our Copenhagen and Vienna
offices. In August, Junior Professional Officer
Manuchekhr Salokhudinov from Tajikistan
joined
our Secretariat and two other vacancies are currently in the process of being filled. While I am glad to
welcome new and motivated staff who will continue to strengthen the quality of the work we deliver
to our members, I also wish to thank
Deputy Secretary General Semyon Dzakhaev,
who is retiring
at the end of this year, for his service to the Assembly.
Attached to this report, you can find a document that outlines the composition of our staff and the
different responsibilities covered by each of them. We are a
multitasking staff performing a vast
range of duties.
This is the nature of a small yet engaged International Secretariat. You will notice
that I have tried to strengthen our
election component,
also considering that other organizations are
constantly looking at us to provide leadership in EOMs, as well as our
media outreach.
In fact, we
have been prioritizing efforts to raise our impact and visibility, and I am confident that our new
strategy, which is based on a wiser use of our tools and of our public messaging, will show its results.
For instance, you will have noticed a hype in communicating the views of our leadership on relevant
current issues.
I am also very glad that the
OSCE PA Events APP
we launched ahead of the Annual Session was a
great success. We have collected many inputs and feedback in order to continue to improve it for
upcoming activities, possibly also adding new functionalities such as topic sections.
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Report of OSCE PA Secretary General, Marrakech, October 2019
Another very important ongoing
reform process concerns our Rules of Procedure.
Recent
amendments have indeed added clarity. However, the voting process during the Luxembourg Annual
Session showed that there is a need for further optimization and revision. The International Secretariat
stands ready to support the work of the Sub-Committee on Rules of Procedure under the leadership of
Vice-President Lord Peter Bowness
in enhancing their transparency and effectiveness. The objective
is to present a reform proposal to be voted by the Standing Committee in Vienna in February 2020 and
allow amendments to be in force in time for the upcoming Annual Session in Vancouver.
Co-operation within the OSCE and with external partners
Co-operation with participating States, the Executive Structures, Institutions and Field Operations of
the OSCE continues to be excellent and is enriched by regular interactions at all levels, first and
foremost by our Vienna Liaison Office. The presence of the PA leadership in events such as the OSCE
Informal Ministerial or the HDIM is aimed at offering a specific parliamentary contribution and added
value to the overall efforts of the Organization. I am glad that such contributions are increasingly
welcomed and actually sought by our counterparts. As a matter of fact,
we work collegially and with
the
OSCE’s collective interest in mind.
This approach has proven useful in a number of instances. I
am determined to continue this way given the all-around positive assessment by our Members and by
our governmental counterparts as well as the overarching recognition that our internal and external co-
operation has increased both in quantity and in quality.
Co-operation of course extends to our partners also outside the OSCE framework. In this regard, while
I will mention later some important activities planned for the upcoming weeks, I wish to draw the
attention on one particular event: the
brainstorming meeting
I organized in August in Snekkersten,
Denmark
with our main election observation partners: PACE, NATO PA, the European
Parliament and of course ODIHR.
The good atmosphere of the retreat allowed frank and
constructive talks, and I am glad that they all stressed that co-operation is now running at its best. We
discussed how to make the parliamentary briefings and the press conference more appealing to MPs
and the media; how to revise and make more effective the structure of the press statement; how to
improve mutual understanding of the different nature of organizations comprising the EOMs and the
challenges deriving from combining the technical and political expertise; how to better follow-up and
implement EOM recommendations. We also exchanged views on our revised code of conduct and
guidelines which will continue to be tested in our upcoming observation exercises.
Upcoming events
The
President
will continue to be very active in the next months. On 14-15 October, he will pay a
visit to Serbia,
while in November he will travel to
Ukraine and Albania.
In Tirana, he will confirm
the Assembly’s
engagement to lend support to the upcoming Albanian 2020 OSCE Chairmanship. He
will also join the Special Representative on Mediterranean Affairs,
Pascal Allizard,
in a visit to
Egypt:
yet another practical manifestation of our determination to boost co-operation with our partner
countries. Moreover, we are working to identify a suitable period for a Presidential visit to
Armenia,
following an invitation by authorities. President Tsereteli, as well as many of our Special
Representatives, will also take part in a number of other events and international conferences
throughout the OSCE region.
We will deploy
Election Observation Missions
for the Parliamentary Elections in
Belarus
(17
November) and the Parliamentary Elections in
Uzbekistan
(22 December).
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Report of OSCE PA Secretary General, Marrakech, October 2019
Our interaction with the executive structures of the OSCE will also continue steadily. Besides the day-
to-day co-operation undertaken by the Vienna Liaison Office, there are three noteworthy
appointments. On 31 October, President Tsereteli will deliver his second
address to the OSCE
Permanent Council
this year. On 13 November, we will receive a
visit from the OSCE High
Commissioner on National Minorities, Lamberto Zannier,
to explore avenues of co-operation with
parliamentarians in this critical field and, the day after, I will address an important conference marking
the 20
th
anniversary of the Lund recommendations
on the Effective Participation of National
Minorities
organized by his office in Sweden.
Finally, the OSCE year will as usual culminate with
the
Ministerial Council in Bratislava on 5-6 December,
where our President will address the opening
session and our Bureau is expected to attend. We are working hard, especially through the VLO, to
ensure that the many recommendations adopted in Luxemburg can foster additional decisions by
OSCE Ministers.
With regards to external partners, on 16 October I will attend with President Tsereteli the 125
th
Assembly of the
Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Belgrade,
while on 23-25 October we will be
in Strasbourg for meetings with the leadership of the European Parliament and to attend the European
Conference of Presidents of Parliament, organized by PACE,
which our President will also
address, while I will take part in the meeting of Secretaries General.
Our
Ad Hoc Committees
are also engaged in implementing their work plans. The Committee on
Countering Terrorism is finalizing the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding with the United
Nations Office on Countering Terrorism (UNOCT), with the aim of providing a distinct parliamentary
contribution to wider global efforts, and its
new Chair Abid Raja
will address the OSCE Security
Committee on 11 November. On that occasion, he will also present the final report, which has been
turned into a
fully-fledged publication, of the parliamentary oversight initiative
on border control
–
a pilot initiative which proved extremely successful. The Migration Committee is also working hard
on targeted initiatives and is considering
important field visits
to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and,
next year, to Canada as well as the U.S.-Mexico border.
Finally, our conference team is already working to prepare our
2020 statutory meetings
in Vienna
(Winter Meeting), Vancouver (Annual Session) and San Marino (Autumn Meeting).
In conclusion, I can assure you that I will spare no efforts in trying to raise the impact of our Assembly
and in tailoring activities to enable our Members to provide a distinct parliamentary added value to the
work of the OSCE. As I noted in my remarks to the Plenary Session of our Assembly in Luxembourg,
the PA is well-placed to have a long-term impact. Very often political life in our countries has short-
term targets and is hijacked by the electoral cycle. While this is of course the flavour of democracy, it
sometimes hinders strategic vision and long-term planning. In the OSCE PA, the short-term pressure
of elections, as well as constraints of political ideologies, are no obstacles to assuming a more future-
oriented posture and perspective when elaborating policies and recommendations. This great asset, if
fully exploited, allows us to better deliver to the end-users of the OSCE product, the citizens of the
OSCE region
from Vancouver to Vladivostok.
Finally, I also wish to take this opportunity to express my deepest gratitude to the Standing Committee
for re-electing me as Secretary General until the end of 2025. It is for me an honour and a privilege to
guide this International Secretariat at the service of the OSCE Parliamentary
Assembly’s
Members.
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Annex I - Overview of OSCE PA International Secretariat - Internal structures and responsibilities
Annex I
THE OSCE PA INTERNATIONAL SECRETARIAT:
Internal structures and responsibilities
Leadership
•
•
•
•
Roberto MONTELLA, Secretary General
Gustavo PALLARES, Deputy Secretary General
Semyon DZAKHAEV, Deputy Secretary General
Andreas NOTHELLE, Ambassador, Special Representative (Vienna Liaison Office)
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Senior Management
•
•
Francesco PAGANI, Chief Political Advisor
Marieta SAMAC, Chief Administration and Finance
-------------------------------------------------
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Guido ALMERIGOGNA, Executive Advisor
Andreas BAKER, Head of Elections (and Director of Human Security)
Marco BONABELLO, Senior Advisor (and Director of Economic and Environmental
Security)
Dana BJERREGAARD, Head of Document Services
Marc CARILLET, Senior Advisor
Farimah DAFTARY, Senior Programme Officer
Anna DI DOMENICO, Communications and Press Officer
Tim KNOBLAU, Programme and Administrative Officer
Odile LELARGE, Head of Conference Services
Stephanie KOLTCHANOV, Election Officer
Nat PARRY, Head of Communications and Press
Stephen PAUL, Head, ICT Service and Support Section, Deputy CAF
Loic POULAIN, Presidential Advisor
Iryna SABASHUK, Election Administration Officer
Manuchekhr SALOKHUDINOV, Programme Officer
Dimitrije TODORIC, Administration and Logistics Officer
Chief Diplomatic Advisor - vacant
Media Support Officer - vacant
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Annex I - Overview of OSCE PA International Secretariat - Internal structures and responsibilities
Office of the OSCE PA President
•
•
•
Francesco PAGANI, Head and Policy Advice
Loic POULAIN, General Coordination
Stephanie KOLTCHANOV, Support
Office of OSCE PA Secretary General
•
•
•
•
•
Francesco PAGANI, Head and Policy Advice
Guido ALMERIGOGNA, General Coordination
Stephanie KOLTCHANOV, Support
Dimitrije TODORIC, Administration, SG’s support
Anna DI DOMENICO, support
Election Observation Department
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Andreas BAKER, Head and General Coordination
Iryna SABASHUK, Deputy, Administration and Logistics
Stephanie KOLTCHANOV, support
Anna DI DOMENICO, Support
Loic POULAIN, Support
Regional and Country Coordinators and Experts provide political guidance and
advise
On a rotating basis all staff are involved in election observation missions
Press and Communications
•
•
•
Nat PARRY, Head and General Coordination
Anna DI DOMENICO, Deputy, OSCE PA APP, Website,
MEDIA SUPPORT OFFICER, Support -
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Annex I - Overview of OSCE PA International Secretariat - Internal structures and responsibilities
ADMINISTRATION, FINANCE AND HUMAN RESOURCES
•
•
•
•
•
•
Marieta SAMAC, Head and General Coordination
Stephen PAUL, Deputy CAF, Chief, ICT Service and Support Section
Dana BJERREGAARD, Head of Document Services
Tim KNOBLAU, Programme and Administrative Officer
Odile LELARGE, Head of Conference Services
Anna DI DOMENICO, Support
Conference Services
•
•
Odile LELARGE, Head and General Coordination
Dimitrije TODORIC, Administration and Logistics Officer
Document Services
•
•
•
•
Dana BJERREGAARD, Head and General Coordination
Farimah DAFTARY, Support
Tim KNOBLAU, Support
Iryna SABASHUK, Support
Information Technology
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•
Stephen PAUL, Head and General Coordination
New Media Support Officer, Support
Research Assistants Programme
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•
•
•
Farimah DAFTARY, Programme Coordinator
Marco BONABELLO, Programme Coordinator (Vienna)
Dana BJERREGAARD, Support
Tim KNOBLAU, Support
VIENNA LIAISON OFFICE
•
•
•
•
•
•
Andreas NOTHELLE, Ambassador, Special Representative
Chief Diplomatic Advisor - vacant
Marco BONABELLO, Senior Advisor (and Director of Economic and Environmental
Security)
Marc CARILLET, Senior Advisor
Tim KNOBLAU, Programme and Administrative Officer
Francesco PAGANI, Chief Political Advisor
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Annex I - Overview of OSCE PA International Secretariat - Internal structures and responsibilities
STATUTORY ACTIVITIES AND OUTREACH PROGRAMMES
General Committee on Political Affairs and Security
•
•
•
Gustavo PALLARES, Director
Loic POULAIN, Support
Andreas NOTHELLE, Member of the Vienna PC based FSC and 1
ST
Committee
General Committee on Economic Affairs, Science, Technology and Environment
•
•
•
•
Semyon DZAKHAEV, Director
Marco BONABELLO, Director and Member of the PC based 2
nd
Committee (as of
01/01/2020)
Vienna JPO, Support
Stephanie KOLTCHANOV, Support
General Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions
•
•
•
Andreas BAKER, Director
Farimah DAFTARY, support
Marc CARILLET, Member of the Vienna PC based 3
rd
Committee
Sub-Committee on Rules of Procedure and Working Practices
•
•
•
•
•
Semyon DZAKHAEV, Director
Andreas BAKER, Coordinator (as of 01/01/2020)
Gustavo PALLARES, Advisor
Guido ALMERIGOGNA, Support
Dana BJERREGAARD, Support
Counter-terrorism
•
•
Marco BONABELLO, Programme Coordinator
Vienna JPO, Support
Migration
•
•
Farimah DAFTARY, Programme Coordinator
Manuchekhr SALOKHUDINOV, Support
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Annex I - Overview of OSCE PA International Secretariat - Internal structures and responsibilities
Eastern Europe (Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova)
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Andreas NOTHELLE, Programme Coordinator
•
Francesco PAGANI, Programme Coordinator
•
Loic POULAIN, Programme Coordinator
Gender Issues
•
•
Gustavo PALLARES, Programme Coordinator
Marc CARILLET, Support
South East Europe
•
•
•
Andreas NOTHELLE, Programme Coordinator
Francesco PAGANI, Support
Marc CARILLET, Support
Mediterranean
•
•
•
•
•
Gustavo PALLARES, Programme Coordinator
Marc CARILLET, Support
Marco BONABELLO, Support
Anna DI DOMENICO, Support
Loic POULAIN, Support
Central Asia
•
•
Farimah DAFTARY, Programme Coordinator
Manuchekhr SALOKHUDINOV, Support
South Caucasus
•
•
Tim KNOBLAU, Programme Coordinator
Iryna SABASHUK, Support
Fighting Corruption
•
Marco BONABELLO, Programme Coordinator
Arctic Issues
•
Guido ALMERIGOGNA, Programme Coordinator
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Annex I - Overview of OSCE PA International Secretariat - Internal structures and responsibilities
Civil Society Engagement
•
Andreas BAKER, Programme Coordinator
Disinformation and Propaganda
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Anna Di DOMENICO, Programme Coordinator
Digital Agenda
•
Anna Di DOMENICO, Programme Coordinator
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