OSCE PA WINTER MEETING SET TO DISCUSS EUROPEAN SECURITY ARCHITECTURE

PanARMENIAN.Net
16.02.2009 17:15 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ More than 270 parliamentarians from the OSCE
Parliamentary Assembly are scheduled to attend the Eighth Winter
Meeting in Vienna 19-20 February, where the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office,
Greece’s Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis, will address the opening
session on Thursday morning, February 19, the OSCE PA press office
told PanARMENIAN.Net.

Other speakers include the President of the Austrian Nationalrat,
Barbara Prammer; the President of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly,
U.S. Congressman, John Tanner; and OSCE PA President, Joao Soares.

One of the highlights during the Winter Meeting will be a special
debate on Friday morning, 20 February, about the initiatives by Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev and French President Nicolas Sarkozy for
new European security arrangements. The OSCE parliamentarians will
hear from Alexander Groushko, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs
of the Russian Federation; Veronique Bujon-Barre, Deputy Director
for Political and Security Affairs of the French Foreign Ministry;
and OSCE PA President Joao Soares.

The debate, as other sessions and the meetings of the three General
Committees during the Winter Meeting, is open to the press.

During the closing session on 20 February, the delegates will hear
presentations by the OSCE PA’s Special Representative on Gender
Issues, OSCE PA Vice-President Tone Tingsgaard, and by Panos Kammenos,
Greek Vice Minister of Mercantile Marine, Aegean & Island Policy, on
"Piracy As a New Security Threat."

The Winter Meeting’s agenda also includes a special presentation on
Kazakhstan’s preparations for its OSCE Chairmanship in 2010 by the
Kazakh delegation, led by its head of delegation and OSCE PA Vice
President, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.

The OSCE PA Winter Meeting, addressed by the top officials of the
OSCE, including the Secretary General and Heads of Institutions is
the second largest event in the OSCE PA calendar, topped only by the
Annual Session, which is due in Vilnius, Lithuania from June 29