On 22 and 23 February 2007, a Canadian
delegation participated at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Winter
Meeting. Members of the delegation were Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein
(Delegation Head and OSCE Treasurer), Senator Jean-Claude Rivest, Roy Cullen,
Francine Lalonde and David Tilson. The delegation was accompanied by Denis
Robert (Delegation Secretary) and Jean-Rodrigue Paré (Advisor).
OVERVIEW OF
THE OSCE
Created in 1975 as the “Conference on
Security and Co‑operation in Europe” (CSCE), the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) received its current name at the
Budapest Summit in December 1994. The OSCE participating countries, currently
56 in number, are “all the European states, the United States and Canada.”(1) A further 11 countries from the Mediterranean area and Asia joined as observers under the title “Partners for Cooperation.” The organization is
defined as a primary instrument for early warning, conflict prevention and
crisis management. It is also recognized as a regional arrangement under
Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter, which requires that
participating United Nations Member States “make every effort to achieve
pacific settlement of local disputes through such regional arrangements or by
such regional agencies before referring them to the Security Council.”(2)
However, the OSCE is not an international organization in the strict sense of
international law, in that its resolutions are not legally binding on the
signatory countries.
The OSCE’s 2007 budget is
€168.2 million, of which nearly 75% is dedicated to field operations in
16 countries. The OSCE employs approximately 3,500 individuals, of whom
about 500 work in its various institutions and 3,000 are assigned to field
missions. One-quarter of the OSCE employees are seconded by the participating
countries.
A. An Inclusive, Global and
Cooperative Approach to Security
The OSCE’s unique character derives from its
composition, by which the United States and Canada participate as full members
in an organization that addresses European issues. The OSCE favours inclusive
dialogue over selective admission. This enables it to keep communication
channels open on key security issues between Western democracies and countries
with less exemplary democratic records. It also promotes exchanges between the
European Union and Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan) that are not members of the Council of Europe.
Whereas the foremost goal of the Council of Europe is to harmonize democratic
practices among its member states, the OSCE aims to foster the development of
an expansive, conflict-free geographic area – from Vancouver to Vladivostok – regardless of the participating countries’ democratic status.
The OSCE’s resolutions and activities stem
from an originating concept of global security that extends beyond the
political-military model. In the Charter for European Security,adopted
at the November 1999 Istanbul Summit, the heads of state and of government of the
participating countries agreed to “address the human, economic, political and
military dimensions of security as an integral whole.”(3) All forms
of peaceful cooperation between the participating countries are considered as
having the potential to reduce the risks of conflict in the region. The OSCE’s
cooperative approach is confirmed by the fact that all 56 states have equal
status. Decisions are made by consensus rather than majority vote. (4)
B. Operational Capacities
After the end of the Cold War, the OSCE
developed its institutions and operational capacities in response to particular
and often urgent needs, and not as a long-term strategic plan. The 1990 Charter
of Paris for a New Europe laid the foundations for the OSCE’s institutional
framework.
Field activities account for almost 75% of
the OSCE budget. The fact that it has no missions in Western Europe or North America is a point frequently raised by the Commonwealth of Independent States to
argue that, although it claims to be cooperative and egalitarian, the OSCE
applies a double standard in its relations with the participating countries.
The OSCE’s reply is that its operations stem from commitments made in a
consensual manner and at the invitation of the countries themselves. The six OSCE
missions in southeast Europe account for half of the organization’s budget. At
€35.2 million in 2007, the budget for the Kosovo mission alone is roughly
equivalent to the allocation for the OSCE Secretariat (€30.9 million).
The OSCE is led by a rotating
“chairman-in-office” selected to serve a one-year term from among the foreign
ministers of the participating countries. As the organization’s senior
diplomat, the chairman-in-office is supported by the Secretariat and its
secretary general. Spain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miguel Angel
Moratinos, is the OSCE Chairman-in-Office for 2007. France’s Marc Perrin de
Brichambaut has served as OSCE Secretary General since June 2005.
C. The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly
Created by the OSCE (at that time the CSCE)
under the 1990 Charter of Paris for a New Europe, the Parliamentary
Assembly (PA) held its first Annual Meeting in Budapest in July 1992, and its
Secretariat began operations at Copenhagen in January 1993. The PA is an
independent, separately funded organization that plays an advisory role in the
OSCE’s activities. Over 300 parliamentarians appointed by their respective
parliaments meet several times a year to debate a number of OSCE matters. The
parliamentarians prepare declarations and reports and issue recommendations for
their own governments, parliaments and civilians concerning the OSCE’s three
spheres of action. The PA plays a key role in observing elections in the OSCE
member states and regularly dispatches parliamentary delegations on field
missions.
The PA convenes at an Annual Meeting in July,
a Fall Meeting in November, a Winter Meeting in February, and every two years
at an Economic Forum in May. At the Annual Meeting, the Assembly adopts a
final declaration and a number of resolutions in a plenary session. The
Assembly elects 11 parliamentarians to the Bureau of the Assembly (comprised of
a president, 9 vice-presidents and a treasurer), as well as a chair, vice-chair
and rapporteur for each of the three general committees. Together, the Bureau
members, general committee chairs and the heads of the participating state
delegations make up the Standing Committee. At the Annual Meeting, decisions
are made by majority vote, whereas the Standing Committee applies the
“consensus minus one” rule, except in the appointment of the
secretary general, which requires a majority vote. The PA’s 2006‑2007 budget
is €2.56 million, of which Canada has contributed €141,699.
Göran Lennmarker (Sweden) has been president of the PA since July 2006, succeeding Alcee L. Hastings (United States). Spencer Oliver (United States) has served as secretary general since
January 1993. The Canadian Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein has acted as
treasurer since July 2004. Senator Consiglio Di Nino has led the Canadian
delegation since February 2005.
2007 OSCE PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY WINTER MEETING
On 22 and 23 February, over 250
parliamentarians from the OSCE participating countries and representatives from
the “Partners for Cooperation” met in Vienna. The program comprised the
meeting of the Standing Committee, made up of the heads of the delegations in
attendance, an opening plenary session and a closing plenary session that
brought together the three general commissions, separate meetings for the three
commissions, and a special debate on energy security in the OSCE region in
response to issues raised at last year’s G8 Summit at St. Petersburg.
A. Standing Committee
At the meeting of the Standing Committee, the
Bureau members, the three general committee chairs and the delegation heads
heard the following presentations:
President Lennmarker began with a review of his
presidential priorities: strengthening the PA’s role in ongoing OSCE
activities; mediation of ongoing conflicts; human rights promotion; the
battle against refugee trafficking; election observations; and, lastly,
Central Asia and the key issue of Kazakhstan’s bid for OSCE
presidency in 2009, which he supported. The Committee also approved the
choice of Kazakhstan to host the July 2008 PA Annual Meeting. He
then summarized his presentation at the OSCE Ministerial Council at Brussels in December 2006; his visits; and the outcomes of the election observation
mission to Serbia, which he headed.
The PA Treasurer, Canadian Senator
Jerahmiel Grafstein, presented a very positive financial report and
announced that he had achieved his objective of ensuring that the
organization has financial reserves equivalent to an annual budget for
expenditures. He emphasized the qualities of the PA Internet site and invited
the participants to link their parliamentary sites to that of the PA.
Secretary General Spencer Oliver presented a report
on activities, highlighting the Secretariat’s efforts in the election
observation missions and the positive reactions to the newsletter News
from Copenhagen. He also presented the plans for the Sixteenth Annual
Meeting to be held in July at Kiev, Ukraine.
President Lennmarker presented his report on the
election observation mission in Serbia. The mission had uncovered
tensions between the OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human
Rights (ODIHR) and the PA as to their respective roles in releasing the
mission outcomes. The Committee members supported the President’s call
for a meeting between the ODIHR Director, the PA President and the OSCE
Chairman-in-Office to find common ground between the ODIHR’s position on
the need for expertise and the PA’s case for political legitimacy.
Uta Zapf (Germany), Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee
on Belarus, announced the upcoming seminar on the European Neighbourhood
Policy.
B. First Joint Session of the
General Committees
At the opening plenary session, the PA heard
the following presentations:
President Lennmarker welcomed the participants and
noted that it was the largest attendance yet at a winter PA meeting. He
underscored the growing importance of parliamentary diplomacy in the
international arena and applauded the substantial contributions of the
OSCE’s PA to the election observation missions and its additional support
for governmental conflict resolution efforts.
Barbara Prammer, President of the Austrian
Parliament, commended the reforms undertaken to make the OSCE more
effective. She praised the OSCE’s democratization programs and hoped that
the parliamentarians’ oversight role would be strengthened through greater
collaboration with the International Organization of Supreme Audit
Institutions (INTOSAI) and the International Ombudsman Institute, whose
head office is currently at the University of Alberta. She also supported
the OSCE’s efforts to promote gender equality and to combat human
trafficking.
Josep Borrell Fontelles, Special Representative of
the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, spoke on behalf of Spain’s Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Miguel Angel Moratinos. He stressed the need for
parliamentarians to become involved in supranational initiatives, and
expressed his particular support for the PA resolutions on reinforcing the
field missions and on cooperating with more international organizations.
He reminded the parliamentarians of the need for patience: the
development of democratic institutions and cultures must be viewed from a
long-term perspective.
Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, OSCE Secretary General,
spoke of 2006 as a year of consolidation in the wake of problems encountered
by the organization in 2005. He informed the participants that a
results-based budget approach had been implemented and a new
decision-making process adopted. The PA had launched several initiatives
to address the priorities adopted by the Ministerial Council at Brussels in December 2006, including human trafficking and the battle against organized
crime. Pursuant to the conflict arising from the Serbian elections, the
Secretary General reaffirmed his intention to apply fully the terms of the
Cooperation Agreement entered into between the ODIHR and the PA on
election observation missions. He noted that the many challenges facing
the OSCE were external, and hoped that the threatened tensions around
Kosovo’s status would not undermine the many years of effort by the
international community. In his opinion, the OSCE mirrors the region’s
security climate, and its internal tensions reflect actual threats that
must be acknowledged. Therefore, the doubts about the OSCE’s role that
have been expressed by some of the participating states should not be
taken lightly, since they bring into question the common values
underpinning the OSCE.
C. General Committee on Political
Affairs and Security
Chair: Jean-Charles Gardetto (Monaco)
Vice-Chair: Hans Raidel (Germany)
Rapporteur: Kristian Pihl Lorentzen
(Denmark)
The Committee Vice-Chair began by presenting
a follow-up report on the resolutions adopted by the PA and gave an overview of
future OSCE actions on armament control, anti-terrorism and the battle against
human trafficking. He asked the PA to attend government meetings where
decisions liable to have an impact on the PA’s work would be made.
Mr. Lorentzen then outlined his report to be
presented at Kiev. It would cover two main subjects: energy security,
particularly the potential for greater cooperation between producer and
consumer states, and Belarus. To address these, Mr. Lorentzen has been invited
to join the Ad Hoc Working Group on Belarus. The Kosovo situation will
continue to be closely monitored.
OSCE High Commissioner on National
Minorities, Ambassador Rolf Ekeus, then presented an activities report of his
office. He reviewed the findings of his report on integration and diversity
policies presented at the PA Annual Meeting at Brussels in July 2006.
Ambassador Werner Wnendt, Head of the OSCE
Mission in Kosovo, informed the Committee on the situation that has prevailed
since the UN’s Special Envoy for Kosovo filed his report. He stated that the
OSCE mission would continue to play a key role, and that this would become even
more important should no agreement be reached. Once the United Nations has
adopted a resolution on the status of Kosovo, the OSCE mission will again be
autonomous, having fulfilled its mandate under the UN.
D. General Committee on Economic
Affairs, Science, Technology and Environment
Chair: Leonid Ivanchenko (Russia)
Vice-Chair: Petros Efthymiou (Greece)
Rapporteur: Roland Blum (France)
The Committee Chair presented a report on his
participation at the OSCE Economic and Environmental Forum, which dealt
with soil degradation and contamination as well as drinking water management.
The Vice-Chair presented his follow-up report
on the resolutions adopted at Brussels in 2006 and reviewed the attendant
actions taken by the OSCE, particularly those bearing on energy security,
illicit air transport of small arms, and the monitoring of social development
measures. The Committee Rapporteur then presented his plans to deliver a
report on the economic consequences of migrations.
The Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and
Environmental Activities,
Bernard Snoy, presented his report on activities in 2006, which included
efforts toward trade facilitation in landlocked countries. He informed the
participants that the issue of environmental security would be taken up at the
ministerial council to be held in Madrid in November 2007.
E. General Committee on Democracy,
Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions
Chair: Anne-Marie Lizin (Belgium)
Vice-Chair: Cecilia Wigström (Sweden)
Rapporteur: Jesús López-Mendel (Spain)
After the Chair presented the agenda, the
Vice-Chair presented her follow-up report on the resolutions adopted at the
2006 Annual Meeting in Brussels. She noted the remarkable progress made to
date on the PA’s recommendations for combating anti-Semitism and intolerance.
She reiterated the importance of ensuring that the PA continue to fulfil its
role in the election observation missions in compliance with the 1997
Cooperation Agreement signed with ODIHR. With respect to the fight against
child exploitation and human trafficking, Eva Biaudet, OSCE Special
Representative for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, was invited to give a
presentation at the 2007 Annual Meeting at Kiev.
The Committee Rapporteur presented an
overview of a report to be submitted at the upcoming Annual Meeting. Notably,
it deals with the connection between the humanitarian values underpinning the
OSCE framework and the security of the populations of the participating
countries. He also made the connection between fundamental freedoms and the
battle against terrorism.
The OSCE Representative for Freedom of the
Media, Miklos Haraszti, addressed the Committee on the development of standards
to facilitate journalist accreditation. He also recalled the violent acts
against journalists in the past year. He expressed his concern that many
journalists have been prosecuted for revealing state secrets and stated his
intention to pursue his efforts to decriminalize defamatory libel in several
OSCE countries.
Christian Strohal, Director of the OSCE
Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) presented various
activities of his organization that are less visible than those concerning
election observation: notably, support for legislative development to combat
terrorism and promote good governance. In view of the controversy surrounding
the PA–ODIHR collaboration on the election observation mission in Serbia, Mr. Strohal urged that a methodology to support the work of the observation mission
be established and that the complementary roles of the PA and ODIHR be
clarified.
F. Special International Debate:
Energy Security within the OSCE Region
The debate was opened by President
Lennmarker. The key issue was the use of energy resources as diplomatic
weapons. The pressure exerted by Russia on its neighbours and the consequences
of that pressure for the stability of the European energy supply was clearly
the matter at hand, despite the neutral references to the situations of
producer, transporter and consumer states. Connections were also made between
the development of alternative fossil energies, environmental protection and
energy independence from producer countries.
G. Closing Plenary Session
At the closing plenary session the parliamentarians
heard the following presentations:
The OSCE Special Representative on Gender Issues,
Tone Tingsgaard (Sweden), invited the participants to become actively
involved by joining her informal network. She was unable to note any
significant progress on the issue of women’s representation within the
OSCE either on the ministerial side or in the PA’s delegations.
The three chairs summarized the work of their
respective committees.
Finally, President Lennmarker concluded the Winter
Meeting by inviting the parliamentarians to the upcoming Economic Meeting
in Andorra in May and to the Annual Meeting at Kiev in July 2007.
H. Participation of the Canadian
Delegation
1. Standing Committee
Senator Grafstein, Treasurer and Head of the
Canadian Delegation in the absence of Senator Di Nino, was the only Canadian
delegate authorized to participate at the meeting of the
Standing Committee. Senator Grafstein was commended by the participants
for his excellent management of the OSCE’s finances. His mandate ends in July.
2. Closing Plenary
Session
Senator Grafstein, in the capacity of
Treasurer of the Parliamentary Assembly, presented the organization’s budget
report.
3. General Committee
on Economic Affairs, Science, Technology and Environment
Senator Grafstein recommended that a working
group be set up on conciliation between economic growth and agricultural land
development. The recommendation noted the phenomenon of agricultural land
prices, which are rising faster than residential land prices in major North
American cities because of increased bio-fuel production.
4. International
Special Debate on Energy Security
A presentation by Member of Parliament Roy Cullen on the need to
maintain a balance between a secure energy supply and responsible environmental management was well
received (see Appendix 3).
5. Bilateral Meetings
Senator Grafstein attended two parallel
meetings on the OSCE’s Mediterranean dimension. He was invited to participate
at a round-table discussion by the countries in the region, to include Libya, subsequent to the discussions begun at the 2006 Autumn Meeting in Malta.
Respectfully
submitted,
Senator Jerahmiel Grafstein Canadian Delegation
to the Organization for Security and