OSCE Georgia Mission and European Commission sign assistance agreement

TBILISI, 21 December 2001 - Yesterday, the OSCE Mission to Georgia and the European Commission (EC) signed a Grant Agreement of 210,000 euros in Brussels. The grant is a European Union contribution for the strengthening of the activities of Georgian-South Ossetian conflict settlement mechanisms, and is a response to an official request for assistance directed to the OSCE from the sides to the conflict.

Ambassador Jean-Michel Lacombe, the Head of the OSCE Mission to Georgia, expressed his gratitude to the EU. "This is an important step forward in the peace process, which reflects the EU's willingness to play a more active political role in the southern Caucasus, and to support efforts to resolve conflicts in the region. Also, it reflects a wish to strengthen co-operation between the OSCE and the EU", he said.

At the initiative of the OSCE Mission to Georgia, the European Union - both the Presidency and the Commission - has been included for almost one year in the Georgian-South Ossetian negotiation framework. At the last OSCE Ministerial Council meeting held at the beginning of December in Bucharest, the Foreign Ministers welcomed developments in the peace process and looked forward to further progress in 2002.

The participation of the EU in the peace process came as a result of the EC-funded rehabilitation programmes in the conflict zone first established in 1998. These programmes are being implemented under the auspices of the OSCE Mission to Georgia, in close co-operation with the delegation of the European Commission to Georgia.

The fruitful co-operation between the EU and the OSCE is also being illustrated by the ongoing EU assistance to law enforcement bodies of the Georgian and South Ossetian sides, thus supporting a programme of voluntary handover and destruction of small arms in the zone of conflict, which was initiated by the Joint Peacekeeping Forces and the OSCE Mission to Georgia in the beginning of 2000.

Another illustration of this co-operation is the EU's support to the Georgian Border Guards protecting the OSCE observers at the border between Georgia and the Chechen Republic of the Russian Federation.