Vienna, 01/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - Acting president of the OSCE Dimitrij Rupel, spent most of his speech at the Parliamentary Assembly on 24 February in Vienna focusing on the reform process affecting the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which brings together 55 Countries from as far away as Central Asia.
The Slovenian Minister for Foreign Affairs told parliamentarians that, “You have a reputation of being an incubator of fresh ideas. Just when reform figures at the top of the agenda of the OSCE, I am asking you to get this reputation to come alive”. He indicated that the seven person panel in charge of reflecting on reform of the organisation met up for the first time in Ljubljana last week. The Slovenian Minister said that he had called on them to get off the beaten track”. He posed several questions to the panel: what should the OSCE's strategic vision be? How can the organisation stimulate high level political dialogue? What sort of things can participant countries achieve through the OSCE and which would not be possible through other channels? How should the organisation position itself (particularly after the expansion of the EU and NATO) in the European security architecture? He noted that this work was part of the “Three R Agenda”, which he presented at the beginning of the year with the aim of revitalising, reforming and re-balancing the OSCE.
The panel will be meeting once a month and is expected to submit a report in June. Mr Rupel intends to present the Permanent Council with the report at the end of June. The process will continue via high level consultations in the autumn, explained the Slovenian Foreign Affairs Minister (source our publication Atlantic News).