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Biden: A New Era of Cooperation

By Ernst Hebeker

The American vice president starts to outline Barack Obama's new foreign policy in Munich.

The new foreign policy of the United States under President Barack Obama is characterized by the willingness to enter into dialog on the one hand and a consistent call for international cooperation on the other hand. While Biden repeatedly stressed the willingness of the new Administration in Washington to enter into dialog, he warned Iran quite bluntly against continuing with its nuclear course. READ MORE

President Soares in interview: A year of great challenges

OSCE PA President Joao Soares (Portugal) recently discussed his priorities for the coming year and his hopes for the new Greek Chairmanship of the OSCE. In an interview for the OSCE PA website, Mr. Soares described what he sees as the greatest challenges facing the Organization and the role of the Parliamentary Assembly in addressing these challenges, particularly when it comes to so-called 'frozen conflicts.'

Other issues discussed in the interview included the Russia-Ukraine gas dispute, the Mediterranean Partners for Co-operation and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's proposal for a 'new European security architecture.'

Here follows the full transcript of the interview. READ MORE

Сo-Chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group Issued a Statement on Karabakh Conflict Settlement

The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen Yury Merzlyakov (Russia), Bernard Fassier (France) and Matthew Bryza (USA) issued a statement on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.

The statement notes that the meeting of Presidents Serge Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev in Zurich on January 28th resulted from the Co-Chairs visit to Yerevan and Baku and their meeting with Armenian and Azerbaijani Ministers of Foreign Affairs Edward Nalbandian and Elmar Mamedyarov. During the meeting the Co-Chairmen were informed by the Presidents on the basic principles of the conflict resolution. READ MORE

Georgia Won’t Refuse of Territorial Integrity to Prolong OSCE Mandate

On January 15th Georgian State Minister for Reintegration Temur Iakobashvili declared to reporters, that Georgia will refuse to prolong the OSCE mission in Georgia, provided it demands to violate territorial integrity of the country. “It’s important for us to save OSCE mission in our country. But there are more significant values, fundamental principles like territorial integrity. So we’ll never accept the mandate that would ruin these principles. If Russia changes its decision and chooses the formulation, that would not violate these principles, we’ll agree on it.  But we disagree with purely formal presence of the OSCE mission with another name and format”, - stated Iakobashvili.  READ MORE

"Synergy, symmetry, strategy"

Press release

Greek OSCE Chair pledges to be honest broker, forge stronger ties among States in time of challenge.

 

The OSCE is well placed to address Europe's changing geopolitical challenges in a time marked by crises, the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis, said today in her first address to the Organization's 56 participating States. READ MORE

OSCE: Current State and Perspectives

Zoran Prescher

It is quite evident that Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe experiences now not the best times. Its summit did not gather for almost ten years already. Because of difficulties of principle the Organization’ Council of Ministers for Foreign Affairs during last seven years is not able to adopt Joint Declaration at its annual meetings.

These disagreements are the consequence of the diametrically opposite positions of the West and Russia. In order to make current situation more clear it is expedient to consider in more details the last meeting of the aforementioned Council of Ministers for Foreign Affairs that took place in the beginning of December of 2008 in Helsinki. READ MORE

EU Competitiveness and Industrial Location

In its May 2005 the Group of Economic Policy Analysis (GEPA) discussed the issue of EU competitiveness and industrial location. At that meeting, a request was made for BEPA to prepare a report taking stock of the phenomena of delocalisation and outsourcing in particular and globalisation in general assessing their impact on the European economy and (iii) considering how potential challenges can be addressed.

This report – a draft of which was presented to the GEPA in September 2005 – is a response to this request. The report discusses EU trade patterns, reviews factors affecting industrial location decisions, reviews relevant evidence on globalisation and relocation and their impact in particular on employment and presents a set of policies aimed at improving the EU's competitiveness and its ability to address challenges emanating from these shocks.