OSCE countries must intensify work to confront today’s challenges, Irish Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) says

VIENNA, 22 June 2011 – Though the OSCE has contributed immeasurably to stability and democratic development in its region, the Organization's participating States must intensify their work to confront today's challenges, Ireland's Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister) and Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Eamon Gilmore, said today.

Speaking to a special meeting of the Permanent Council, Gilmore, whose country will hold the 2012 OSCE Chairmanship, said that although participating States can be "justly proud" of the OSCE's achievements, they must "also remain sensitive to the enormous challenges that confront the OSCE".

“In today’s rapidly changing world, the OSCE must show itself sufficiently flexible to be able to update and develop the Human Dimension acquis in response to what are the most pressing human rights concerns of our day,” he said, referring to the wide-ranging commitments OSCE participating States have undertaken in the field of human rights.

“The Irish Chairmanship will be alive to any possibilities for re-affirming or enhancing OSCE commitments in other areas, including measures to tackle trafficking in human beings and measures to strengthen the right to freedom of assembly.”

In December 2010, at an OSCE Summit held in Kazakhstan's capital, leaders of the 56 OSCE participating States adopted the Astana Commemorative Declaration, in which they recommitted themselves "to the vision of a free, democratic, common and indivisible Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security community stretching from Vancouver to Vladivostok, rooted in agreed principles, shared commitments and common goals".

Ireland plans to build on Kazakhstan's 2010 and Lithuania's 2011 OSCE Chairmanships to develop a concrete action plan for the mandate given by the leaders in Astana, Gilmore said, adding that these efforts would focus on the Organization's core competences.

"Efforts to check emerging transnational threats, such as terrorism, organized crime, illicit trafficking and others, are faltering; there is still clearly much to do in terms of entrenching democratic freedoms across the OSCE region; and the region's protracted conflicts remain unresolved," he said.

"Unless we redouble our efforts to tackle these problems, the goal of a free, democratic, common and indivisible security community, reaffirmed in Astana last December, will remain an aspiration, rather than a reality."

The Permanent Council, one of the main regular decision-making bodies of the Organization, convenes weekly in Vienna to discuss developments in the OSCE area and to make decisions.