Nyhedsbrev fra Ambassadør Andreas Nothelle, uge 50, 2013

Special Representative
To:
PA President
and
PA Secretary General
PC Brief Week 49/50, 2013
The first of these weeks was devoted to the Kiev Ministerial Council (MC) meeting, during which
– in addition to the MC – a high number of meetings of the PC, the FSC and the PC committees
took place. The second week saw the usual meetings of these bodies, and another ambassa-
dorial retreat on Helsinki+40, focusing on conflict resolution.
Apart from decisions relevant for forwarding documents to the MC, the PC also approved a set
of initial confidence building measures on Cyber Security. While the FSC discussed the out-
come of the MC, the PC did not do so. Instead, there was a sharp controversy because of a
Russian statement at the occasion of Human Rights Day accusing the US and other Western
countries of numerous human rights violations. A similar exchange of arguments took place
during a brief discussion about the demonstrations in Kiev. In this context, the Belarusian am-
bassador asked the question, which remained unanswered, what would happen in Western
countries if demonstrators committed acts of a similar nature as in Kiev, for instance occupying
public buildings and blocking public institutions and traffic. In addition, the High Commissioner
on National Minorities presented her routine report (not mentioning her appearance at the Au-
tumn Session in Budva), and the Special Envoy of the Chairmanship on Gender reported about
her activities, announcing that she will cooperate more actively with the OSCE PA, which was
supported by the US ambassador.
The general view among ambassadors is that the results of the MC constitute a slight improve-
ment over the two previous MCs. The arguments presented are: There is a “balanced” set of
documents in all three dimensions, the Cyber Security decision is a novelty, the MC approved a
Declaration on Helsinki+40 and there was agreement, after two years of failure to come to such
an agreement, on two documents in the Human Dimension and an addendum to the Action
Plan on Human Trafficking. Some of them attribute this to a more conciliatory position of Russia,
who – in the perception of some Western ambassadors – wanted Ukraine to have a successful
chairmanship. However, at least some also refer to the obvious failures: Again there was no
political declaration, and the MC failed to agree on a Declaration on Afghanistan, a decision for
the protection of journalists and one on women, peace and security, as well as on a decision on
matters relevant to the FSC, mainly because of differing viewpoints about how to further deal
with the modernization of the Vienna Document. More importantly, most decisions adopted were
more about procedures than substance and where there was substance, it was often very weak.
The discussion during the retreat resulted in a number of interesting considerations and ideas,
but not in any debate on concrete measures to come closer to solutions of these conflicts. I re-
ferred to the activities and recommendations of the OSCE PA and conflict resolution in general
and suggested to include the PA and its members more in conflict resolution activities. The pre-
sent Ukrainian and the incoming Swiss chairmanships supported this, while most ambassadors
of the 23 that spoke, including the new Coordinator on Protracted Conflicts, the Finnish ambas-
sador, did not include the PA in the considerations they voiced at this meeting.
Andreas Nothelle, Ambassador
December 16, 2013
OSCEs Parlamentariske Forsamling 2013-14
OSCE Alm.del Bilag 12
Offentligt