OSCE Informal Ministerial Meeting

On 11 July 2017, Federal Minister for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs Sebastian Kurz, in his role as Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), invites his colleagues from the 57 OSCE participating States, the President and General Secretary of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs of the United Nations to an informal meeting in Mauerbach. With this, Austria, which holds the OSCE Chairmanship in 2017, demonstrates once again its long-standing role as a place of dialogue.

In the plenary session, senior representatives of participating States will exchange views on threats to security, as well as on current developments. In addition to the conflicts in the OSCE area, the main topics will include migration, terrorism, human rights, rule of law and democracy.

Following the plenary session, discussions will continue in two interactive roundtable sessions. The first, on “The fight against violent extremism and radicalisation leading to terrorism”, will be introduced by Professor Peter Neumann, the Special Representative of the Chairperson-in-Office on the Fight against Radicalisation and Violent Extremism. The debate will be based on recent events and will attempt to clarify our response to these developments.

The second roundtable will focus on the “Structured Dialogue on current and future challenges and risks to security in the OSCE area” launched in February on the basis of a Declaration adopted by the Ministerial Council in Hamburg in December 2016. The goal of the roundtable is to seize the momentum of previous discussions on threat perceptions, developments in military doctrines and military force postures and to give participating States the opportunity to deepen the conversation. This exchange, taking place against a background of political tension, should lead to more military transparency and stability.

This informal meeting of the OSCE Foreign Ministers in Mauerbach is an important step in preparing the annual OSCE Ministerial Council, which will take place on 7 and 8 December 2017 in Vienna.