Vienna's Hofburg Congress Centre will host the OSCE PA's Winter meeting on 18-20 February. COPENHAGEN, 5 February 2015 – The escalating crisis in and around Ukraine and the OSCE’s continuing efforts to help resolve it will be the focus of parliamentary debate and keynote presentations at the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Winter Meeting, held on 18-20 February at the Hofburg Congress Centre in Vienna.
OSCE Chairperson-in-Office and Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic will address nearly 250 parliamentarians from more than 50 OSCE participating States and take questions during the meeting’s opening plenary on 19 February at 12:00 local time.
Addresses by OSCE PA President Ilkka Kanerva (MP, Finland) and Austrian National Council President Doris Bures will also feature at the plenary, which will be live-streamed on oscepa.org.
On 20 February at 13:30 local time, parliamentarians will hold a special debate to consider the OSCE’s response to the crisis in and around Ukraine. The session will begin with presentations by Ambassador Ertugrul Apakan, Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM), and Ambassador Adam Kobieracki, Director of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre, who will discuss the Organization’s current initiatives aimed at facilitating dialogue and a diplomatic resolution to the crisis. The debate will also be live-streamed on the OSCE PA homepage.
The OSCE PA’s Winter Meeting, held every year since 2002, is the first of three major annual gatherings on the Assembly’s calendar. The Meeting provides an opportunity for OSCE parliamentarians to engage in dialogue with high-level OSCE officials on the latest developments in the OSCE area, debate and consider a range of topics and reinforce interparliamentary contacts. The meeting also serves as an important step in the preparation of reports for the Assembly’s Annual Session, which will be held on 6-10 July in Helsinki.
Meetings of the PA’s three main Committees – Political Affairs and Security; Economic Affairs, Science, Technology and Environment; and Democracy, Human Rights and Humanitarian Questions – will also take place in Vienna. Top OSCE officials addressing the committees include Astrid Thors, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities; Halil Yurdakul Yigitgüden, Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities; Dunja Mijatovic, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media; Michael Georg Link, Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, and others.
Topics of debate in the Committees include “Co-operation in enhancing energy security and reducing environmental and economic challenges in the OSCE area” and “The human rights of migrants and refugees.”
This year’s Winter Meeting will also host the OSCE PA’s annual Mediterranean Forum, with the participation of parliamentarians from OSCE Partner for Co-operation states Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco and Tunisia.
The Assembly will also hear reports by OSCE PA Secretary General Spencer Oliver and Treasurer Roberto Battelli (MP, Slovenia).
The full schedule and agendas for the Winter Meeting are available here.
FOR JOURNALISTS: Members of the press are invited to attend the Winter Meeting and should send their full name, media affiliation and contact details to [email protected].
