News and press releases

On 17 March, and 11 and 12 April, the Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities and the OSCE Transnational Threats Department together with the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, co-organized workshops on youth crime and drug use prevention in Nur-Sultan. The focus of the workshops was cross-agency co-operation through the exchange of best practices and lessons learned in this specific area.

BELGRADE, 4 April 2022 – Fundamental freedoms were largely respected in Serbia’s 3 April presidential and early parliamentary elections, and voters were presented diverse political options, but a number of shortcomings resulted in an uneven playing field, favouring the incumbents, international observers said in a statement today. The combined impact of unbalanced access to the media, undue pressure on public sector employees to support the incumbents, significant campaign finance disparities and misuse of state resources resulted in unequal conditions for contestants, the statement says...

BUDAPEST, 4 April 2022 – Hungary’s parliamentary elections offered voters distinct alternatives and were well run, but while competitive, the process was marred by the pervasive overlapping of government and ruling coalition’s messaging that blurred the line between state and party, as well as by media bias and opaque campaign funding, international observers said in a statement  today.

WARSAW, 2 April 2022 — The OSCE Chairman-in-Office and Poland’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Zbigniew Rau, concluded his visit to Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. The trip focused on existing security challenges and efforts towards sustainable peace as well as strengthening the co-operation between the OSCE and the three states in the South Caucasus region. Throughout the visit from 29 March to 1 April, Minister Rau noted the impact Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has exerted on the security situation in the region. In all capitals he paid particular attention to the situation of the conflict-affected populations.

On 28 and 29 March 2022, OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media (RFoM) Teresa Ribeiro visited the institutions of the European Union in Brussels.

The Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities and the OSCE Transnational Threats Department, co-organized together with the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, workshops on 9, 29 and 30 March 2022 in Tashkent on best practices and challenges in the field of youth crime and drug use prevention. The workshops also addressed the need to strengthen educational programmes to foster youth’s understanding of these threats.

The 26 September 2021 elections to the German Parliament (Bundestag) were generally well organized, and the election administration enjoyed stakeholder confidence notwithstanding some procedural issues reported and observed in Berlin. Overall, the postal voting system contains sufficient safeguards