VIENNA, 25 February 2016 – Nearly 300 lawmakers from Europe, Asia and North America, including four speakers of parliament, assembled today in Vienna for the opening of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s 2016 Winter Meeting , its first major convocation of the year. The crisis of migrants and refugees, which tops the agenda at the two-day meeting, as well as the situation in and around Ukraine, were topics of parliamentary debate and

COPENHAGEN, 22 February 2016 – OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Secretary General Roberto Montella and Danish Parliament Speaker Pia Kjaersgaard met at the Danish Parliament (Folketinget) today to discuss a range of OSCE-related matters. Montella expressed particular gratitude to the Speaker for Denmark’s generosity in hosting the Parliamentary Assembly’s headquarters for more than 20 years. Montella described his priorities as the Assembly’s

COPENHAGEN, 18 February 2016 – OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Ilkka Kanerva (MP, Finland) issued the following statement on the 17 February terror attack in Ankara: "On behalf of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, I condemn in the strongest terms the deadly attack on military personnel and civilians in Ankara. Turkey has yet again been struck by the scourge of terrorism, for which there is never any justification and which accomplishes

COPENHAGEN, 17 February 2016 – The crisis of migrants and refugees in the OSCE area and efforts to strengthen the collective response will be the focus of debate and presentations at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Winter Meeting, held at the Hofburg Congress Centre in Vienna on 25-26 February. Nearly 300 parliamentarians from across the OSCE’s 57 participating States and Partners for Co-operation, including several speakers of parliament,

COPENHAGEN, 12 February 2016 – OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Ilkka Kanerva (MP, Finland) has appointed Bulgarian parliamentarian Kristian Vigenin to serve as the Assembly’s Special Representative on the South Caucasus. The position will focus the Assembly’s efforts to promote reconciliation and the implementation of OSCE commitments in the region, support confidence-building measures, and create a focal point for contact between the PA

Committee Chair Isabel Santos, Vice-Chair Ivana Dobesova and Special Representative Ignacio Sanchez Amor speak with a Syrian refugee, Presevo, 4 February 2016. BELGRADE, 5 February 2016 – The leadership of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions traveled to southern Serbia on 4 February, meeting with refugees, aid workers and officials at reception facilities near the border with the