From Budapest to Budapest: OSCE symposium in Hungarian capital marks 25 years of the Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security

The OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre and Hungary’s Ministry of Defence organized a symposium in Budapest from 16 to 18 October 2019 to mark 25 years of the OSCE Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security. This landmark document, signed in the Hungarian capital in 1994, contains key principles and commitments for the organization’s 57 participating States related to security relations between states and to the control of all armed and security forces within a state.

More than 80 participants from OSCE participating States, including state secretaries, senior officers from the armed forces, senior government officials as well as representatives of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, and academia came together to reflect on the Code’s importance and to their share experiences on its implementation.

The event was opened by the Head of the Security Policy and Non-proliferation at Hungary’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Margit Szücs, and by the Chairperson of the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation and Permanent Representative of the Czech Republic to the OSCE, Ambassador Ivo Šrámek.

The Director of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre, Marcel Peško, recalled that: “the Code of Conduct is a visionary document. This symposium creates an opportunity to engage in a forward-looking dialogue beyond the 25th anniversary.”

The symposium was organized with donor support provided by Germany, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic.