Nyhedsbrev fra Ambassadør Andreas Nothelle, uge 27-28

Special Representative
To:
PA President
and
PA Secretary General
PC Brief Week 27/28, 2017
During the past two weeks, there have been meetings of the Ministerial Council (MC – informal), Per-
manent Council (PC), including a joint meeting with the FSC and a Special PC, and the Forum for Secu-
rity Cooperation (FSC), and a meeting with the Contact Group with the Asian Partners. A number of
committees and other informal bodies and gatherings have also held meetings, including a meeting of
the Informal working group on Legal Personality. There was also a Conference on Combating the
Threat of Illicit Drugs. The PA’s Special Representative on the South Caucasus Kristian Vigenin visited
Vienna for meetings with the Chairpersons of the Minsk Group (as reported in the News from Copenha-
gen and during the PA Annual Session in Minsk). All Permanent Staff members and Research Fellow
Mariia Pavlova participated in the Annual Session. The informal OSCE MC took place outside of Vienna
in Mauerbach, Lower Austria. All Permanent Staff members were also involved in a PA International
Secretariat Retreat on the future work of the Vienna Office with PA SG Roberto Montella and Deputy
SG Gustavo Pallares.
The most important outcome of the work of the OSCE during the reporting period was the political
agreement on the four senior OSCE appointments, which the PC implemented by adopting decisions to
put the four appointments of Thomas Greminger – Switzerland – for Secretary General, Ingibjörg
Sólrún Gísladóttir – Iceland – for Director of the ODIHR, Harlem Désir – France – for Representative on
the Freedom of the Media and Lamberto Zannier – Italy – for High Commissioner on National Minorities
before the ministers in the so-called “Silence Procedure”. This means that – if no participating State
objects before Tuesday, July 18, 2017, at noon, all four will be appointed and can start working the fol-
lowing day.
In addition to these decisions, the PC also adopted the Financial Report and Financial Statements for
the year ended 31 December 2016 and the Report of the External Auditor, approved the dates (11 to 22
September) of the 2017 Human Dimension Implementation Meeting (HDIM) and rescheduled the Medi-
terranean Conference to October 24/25, 2017. The PC also approved the topics for the second part of
the 2017 HDIM, the dates (16th and 17th October) and agenda of the 2017 Economic and Environmen-
tal Dimension Implementation Meeting, as well as the theme, agenda and modalities for this meeting.
Although the official presentation of the results of the Minsk Annual Session will take place next week,
several delegations already made references to the meeting, and the Swedish ambassador thanked the
OSCE PA for its cooperation.
The FSC decided to hold an OSCE meeting to review the implementation of the OSCE assistance pro-
jects in the field of Small Arms and Light Weapons and Stockpiles of Conventional Ammunition (October
3 to 4, 2017).
The News from Copenhagen has reported about the informal MC and President Muttonen’s address to
the ministers. The topics on the agenda were the Structured Dialogue on current challenges in the
OSCE and the fight again radicalization and violent extremism. There was general agreement that the
dialogue would continue. However, the interest was mainly focused on the issue of the senior OSCE
appointments.
Andreas Nothelle
Ambassador
July 14, 2017
OSCEs Parlamentariske Forsamling 2016-17
OSCE Alm.del Bilag 24
Offentligt