VIENNA, 22 February 2013 – OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Riccardo Migliori today announced a committee of parliamentarians headed by Francois-Xavier de Donnea (MP, Belgium) will have the mandate to negotiate on behalf of the Assembly with the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights regarding improved co-operation in future election observation missions.

The OSCE PA Ad Hoc Committee on Transparency and Reform will meet in April in Copenhagen to discuss the issue. De Donnea held preliminary meetings in Vienna this week with OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier and the OSCE/ODIHR Director Janez Lenarcic. Deputy Secretary General Tina Schoen will organize the work of the committee.

De Donnea wrote a special report on election observation for the Belgian OSCE Chairmanship in 2006 and has participated in several election observation missions, including serving as Special Co-ordinator to lead the OSCE observation mission of the Armenian parliamentary elections in 2012. In January 2010, he served as deputy head of the OSCE PA's election observation mission to the Ukrainian presidential election.

The OSCE PA and the OSCE/ODIHR previously co-operated under a 1997 agreement that laid out the respective roles for the institutions and clarified that a parliamentarian appointed as special co-ordinator for the election observation mission would deliver the preliminary post-election statement on behalf of the OSCE.

In December, after repeated challenges to that agreement that undermined appointed special co-ordinators, President Riccardo Migliori with support of the OSCE PA Bureau, declared the agreement no longer operable. (For more background, see the Dubs Report .)

Speaking in the Standing Committee of the OSCE PA on the second day of its Winter Meeting in Vienna, President Migliori today also called on the Ukrainian chairmanship of the OSCE to act to re-establish co-operation between the institutions. Delegates from more than 18 countries spoke during the discussion about election observation with most expressing an interest in having new co-operation within the OSCE going forward.

"I am pleased our decision in Dublin has started a vigorous discussion to address problems in the field of election observation, and I am certain Mr. de Donnea is the right person to lead our negotiations on this matter going forward," Migliori said.