Nyhedsbrev fra Ambassadør Andreas Nothelle, uge 06, 2014

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Special Representative
To:
PA President
and
PA Secretary General
PC Brief Week 6, 2014
This week, there were meetings of the Permanent Council (PC), the Forum for Security Cooperation
(FSC), committees and an event called “Hour with the Secretary General”. I also had a number of
bilateral meetings, in particular with the OSCE Secretary General, the Helsinki+40 Coordinator for
reform issues (the Irish Ambassador), and with the OSCE Gender Advisor. Marc Carillet, the PA’s
Gender Focal Point, spent two days in Warsaw at a workshop on Women’s Political Participation.
The PC heard presentations by the Chairman of the PC’s First Committee and the Head of the Mis-
sion in Kosovo, followed by routine debates. Under “Current Issues”, the PC debated the situation
along the cease-fire lines between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the situation in Ukraine, including
offers by the OSCE to assist with the peaceful resolutions of both cases. The ambassador of Moldo-
va spoke about the situation in his country. I made a statement about the upcoming Winter Meeting.
The most interesting meeting this week was the “Hour with the Secretary General”. In this meeting,
Amb. Zannier informed the delegations about the exchange of letters he had with me on the status
of the OSCE PA as an OSCE institution and the way in which it is listed on the OSCE homepage.
He voiced support for my argumentation, which was based on the practice established in the first
decade of the OSCE and on a number of key OSCE documents, particularly the Declaration of the
Istanbul Summit, which listed the PA first among – what the Heads of States and Governments
called – “our institutions”. Another issue discussed in the meeting was the continued failure of the
Permanent Council to adopt the 2014 OSCE budget.
The deadline for applications for the post of Director of ODIHR (successor to Amb. Lenarcic) expired
on Thursday at lunchtime. Despite my request for information from the Chair, I have no official
knowledge about the candidates. Informally, however, the list is as follows: Michael Link (Germany),
Viktor Makarov (Latvia), Petr Mareš (Czech Republik), Arni Sigurðsson (Iceland). All four of them
have had parliamentary experience.
Ambassador Beham, the OSCE Gender Advisor, discussed with me different ideas about how to
adequately organize this year’s tenth anniversary of the Gender Action Plan. Finally, the Swiss
Chairman of the PC praised the OSCE PA for the systematic and comprehensive manner in which it
has organized its process of developing a contribution to the Helsinki+40 Process.
Andreas Nothelle
Ambassador
February 10, 2014
OSCEs Parlamentariske Forsamling 2013-14
OSCE Alm.del Bilag 21
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