Brussels, 26/01/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Swedish President of the EU Council published the following declaration, after having heard a OSCE report on the problem of light arms in Albania:
"The EU would like to draw the attention of the Forum for cooperation in security matters to the presentation made by Ambassador Ahrens, Head of the OSCE presence in Albania, 18 January before the Permanent Council (of the OSCE). In this presentation, Ambassador Ahrens had raised the constant concern felt by the presence for the arms that had been stolen from the military arsenals in 1997. Despite the continuation of the Arms collection programme, most of the arms remain uncontrolled, and according to the presence, the problem must be tackled in a more energetic manner. We will recall that the Forum had adopted the OSCE document on small and light arms last November. Section 5 of this document asserts that the problem of small arms should be a core part of the wider efforts of the OSCE in terms of early warning, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation. Different sub-sections of the document, and in particular sub-section C that deals with the procedures for the assessments and the recommendations, could in our opinion be significant in the context of the report by Ambassador Ahrens. The EU proposes that the President of the Forum, after consulation with the participant host countries, consider putting the report by Ambassador Ahrens on the agenda of the future Forum meeting. The Forum should then examine if there could be new recommendations made to the Permanent Council on this issue.
The associate countries: Bulgaria, Cyprus, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Turkey align themselves with this declaration."