President Petros Efthymiou meeting the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev (OSCE/Vladimir Trofimchuk)ASTANA, 1 December 2010 – OSCE PA President Petros Efthymiou called today for strengthening transparency and accountability in the OSCE in an address at the start of the OSCE Astana Summit.

The OSCE is facing an “identity crisis,” said the President, but the roots of the crisis can be identified. He cited a lack of mutual trust that “prevents our collective decisions and undermines our ability to deal with the regular workload of the Organization.”

In order to develop trust in the Organization, the structures should make better use of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, he said, and the Permanent Council needs to open its meetings to the press and the public.

Speaking in the main plenary hall, Mr. Efthymiou called for the OSCE Secretary General and Director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) to be filled following a major international search “in order to select individuals of high political caliber.” This would help to increase the visibility, enhance the functioning, and deepen the role of the Organization, he said.

The OSCE PA Bureau met on the eve of the Summit, bringing together the elected officials of the Assembly who form the delegation of the Assembly to the Summit.