Bujar Osmani, Foreign Minister of North Macedonia, current President of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), announced Malta as the new President of the organization and also extended the mandate of three senior officials on the occasion of the meeting of OSCE foreign delegates. ministers who concluded on Friday in the capital Skopje.
Malta will chair the OSCE in 2024 and its Secretary General Helga Schmid, and three other officials – Commissioner for Media Freedom Teresa Ribeiro, High Commissioner on National Minorities Kairat Abdrakhmanov and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and human rights Matteo Mecacci – will remain in office at least until next September.
The consensus expressed by Malta’s election into the OSCE “underlines once again the importance of seeking agreements and compromises for the sake of our common interests and goals through negotiations”, the Foreign Minister of North Macedonia said in a press release published on the OSCE website following the decisions.
“Despite our differences, we have been able to demonstrate the strategic vision needed to advance our constructive efforts to realize the benefits of the OSCE through its work for the benefit of all our nations,” he added.
The opposition of Russia and Belarus, which it supports, to Estonia’s election to the presidency in 2024, as well as the reluctance to extend the mandate of the organisation’s main officials, have caused tensions within the OSCE. Since decisions are made by consensus in the OSCE, a single country was enough to paralyze the organization.
Since Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov also arrived in Skopje, the foreign ministers of the Baltics, Poland, Romania and numerous other countries boycotted the meeting.
According to critics, Russia’s large-scale aggression in Ukraine demonstrated that the OSCE, as an organization created to ensure security and peace in Europe, has lost its purpose.
2023-12-02 08:42:00
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