I am delighted to have this opportunity to appear before the committee with my colleague, Mr. Frank Cogan, to discuss Ireland's chairmanship of the OSCE. It is a great honour and privilege for Ireland and the Government, and the Tánaiste and the rest of the Government are looking forward very much to undertaking this task. The chairmanship will begin on 1 January and will last for a year.
The OSCE is not only the world's largest inter-governmental regional security organisation but also its most regionally diverse. At present, it comprises 56 member states but this will increase to 57 shortly and covers a population of 1 billion. The OSCE adopts a comprehensive and co-operative approach to security. It deals with a wide range of security issues, including arms control, preventive diplomacy, confidence and security building measures, human rights, election monitoring and economic and environmental security.
The organisation has a network of 17 missions in the Balkans, eastern Europe and central Asia. The larger missions are in the Balkans and the largest, in Kosovo, has a major role in encouraging inter-ethnic co-operation and promoting the rule of law. The OSCE has field presences in each of the five republics in central Asia, namely, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
Ireland was a founder member in 1973 of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, CSCE, which formally evolved into the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 1994. Ireland values the OSCE as a forum for many reasons, including that each state participates on the basis of equality and there is a comprehensive concept of security spanning the entire region of 56 member states. Ireland also values its activities in the area of human rights and its role as a regional organisation under the UN Charter in helping to prevent and resolve conflict. There are three policy dimensions to the work of the OSCE, namely, politico-military, economic-environmental and the human aspects of security, which encompasses issues involving human rights and fundamental freedoms. These are the three so-called dimensions of the OSCE. Various commitments under these dimensions have been entered into by the member states in the intervening years through a series of agreements.
Ireland has never before assumed the role of Chair of the OSCE. As chairperson-in-office during the calendar year of 2012, the Tánaiste will bear overall responsibility for the executive action of the organisation and the co-ordination of its activities. His responsibilities include representing the OSCE in various contexts, supervising activities in relation to conflict prevention, post-conflict rehabilitation and providing leadership when crises arise within the OSCE's geographical area, such as in Georgia in 2008 and in Kyrgyzstan last year. Ireland will reap several benefits from chairing the OSCE next year, including a significantly raised EU and international profile over the period in question. Our chairmanship will enhance Ireland's strong reputation for skilled diplomacy and crisis management and will expand our conflict resolution and human rights expertise, both of which are important features of Ireland's foreign policy. It will give us an opportunity to have close and sustained engagement with major international players such as the US, Russia, France and Germany and with countries with whom normally we would have little contact, namely, countries in central Asia. It is a valuable opportunity to enhance Ireland's interests internationally. Ireland is participating in the OSCE troika this year with the current chair of the organisation, Lithuania, whose term of office expires on 31 December, and with Kazakhstan which also previously held the chair.
In his statement to the OSCE's Permanent Council - the group of ambassadors with day-to-day responsibility for the activities of the OSCE - in Vienna on 22 June, the Tánaiste outlined the approach we intended to take to the exercise of the chairmanship role and the priorities we hoped to advance in the year ahead. He noted that the position was an opportunity to highlight Ireland's foreign policy values of multilateral co-operation, the promotion of peace and security and respect for human rights and the rule of law. He also underlined that Ireland would adopt a pragmatic, fair-minded approach and that our aim was to elaborate a set of priorities that will ensure a balanced and coherent approach to the work of the organisation across all three dimensions, namely, the politico-military, economic-environmental and human dimensions. Ireland's proposed priorities for the chairmanship and the outcome of the OSCE ministerial meeting held last week in Vilnius will impact our work programme in 2012. In some instances, we will be carrying forward work commenced during the Lithuanian chairmanship this year.
As chair, we will consistently work to ensure that the OSCE operates at the highest level of efficiency and to keep costs to a minimum. As indicated last week at the Vilnius ministerial meeting by the Minister of State, Deputy Lucinda Creighton, we are all keenly aware of the resource constraints that affect us all as a result of the global economic crisis. The Secretary General of the OSCE, with whom we have an excellent relationship, is aware of the economic restraints and is actively examining how the OSCE operates and is exploring various reform proposals to strengthen its institutional core. In terms of thematic priorities for next year, Ireland will aim to have an ambitious human dimension agenda. The continuing erosion of democratic freedoms in a number of OSCE participating states is a cause of real concern. Central to Irish foreign policy is our commitment to human rights and democratic values and we will ensure that this is reflected in our chairmanship.
The OSCE's comprehensive security concept, dating back to the 1975 Helsinki Act, considers the human dimension of security, namely, the protection and promotion of human rights, fundamental freedoms, democratic institutions and the rule of law, to be as important for the maintenance of peace and stability as are the politico-military or economic dimensions. We will work closely with the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, ODIHR, Warsaw, which was created by participating states as an autonomous body mandated to assist with the implementation of human dimension commitments. Ambassador Janez Lenarcic, the head of ODIHR, will visit Dublin on Thursday of this week and will, I understand, meet a number of Members during his visit. ODIHR works closely with another key OSCE institution, the Office of the Representative on Freedom of the Media, which is focused exclusively on the topics of freedom of expression and freedom of the media.
Ireland regrets that it was not possible to advance work on the human dimension of the OSCE at the Vilnius ministerial meeting last week owing to lack of consensus on any of the human dimension texts. This may well foreshadow the difficulties we face next year but we intend nevertheless to pursue an ambitious agenda. By way of clarification, all decisions in the OSCE are taken on the basis of consensus. It can frequently be difficult to achieve a decision because the agreement of all 56 member states, east and west, is required. Naturally, there will be different priorities across such a large membership.
As the Tánaiste has already indicated publicly, we intend to prioritise the issue of Internet freedom, in particular as it applies to new digital media. As in other parts of the world, the threat to freedom of expression on-line is ever-present in the OSCE region and appears to be growing. Ireland will work to highlight that human rights and fundamental freedoms do not change with new technologies but extend into the digital age. As part of these efforts, we intend to organise a conference in Dublin next June for OSCE participating states at which we will aim to move towards a common understanding of the issues at stake. In so doing, we will seek to showcase Ireland as the Internet capital of Europe, taking advantage of the presence here of so many industry leaders in Internet and new media technologies, such as Google and Facebook.
We also intend to organise events focused, inter alia, on freedom of association and assembly, freedom of religion and belief, trafficking in human beings, and racism and intolerance in sport. The precise nature and focus of these events remains to be defined as we must secure consensus on our package of events early in the New Year, which events will take place in other capitals. We tend to spread the activities across the OSCE region. In the politico-military dimension, Ireland will hope to see continued progress on updating confidence and security building measures and enhancing the conflict prevention capacity of the organisation. We will focus on implementation of the substantial conflict cycle decision agreed at Vilnius.
This means looking at conflict in all its phases, including the early phase of early warning, conflict prevention and moving on to active conflict resolution. Implementation of the conflict cycle decision agreed in Vilnius last week will enable the OSCE to deepen its involvement in this area and strengthen its capacity to tackle conflict from prevention right through to resolution.
Having recently chaired a subsidiary body of the OSCE, the Forum for Security Co-operation, which deals with the military aspects of security in the OSCE area, we welcome the decision taken in Vilnius to update the so-called "Vienna Document", which provides for an exchange of information on arms control and military matters. A basis has now been created for further progress and we will work with the FSC chairs for 2012 to build on this platform.
Another key area of work for the OSCE is the efforts to address transnational threats such as drug trafficking, cyber security and terrorism. Unfortunately, agreement was only achieved on a chapeau decision in this area and further work covering such areas as policing, drugs, cyber security and counter-terrorism will be needed next year. The Irish chairmanship will reflect on how to take up these issues in 2012 and will bring forward proposals in due course for consideration by the participating states. It is necessary for us to obtain consensus of the agenda which we will pursue. There are areas in which we can give a particular push but the requirement for consensus is quite an important organisational principle in the OSCE and there is relatively restricted room for manoeuvre for each chairmanship.
Within the economic and environmental dimension, Ireland's core theme for the so-called Economic and Environmental Forum, which will culminate in Prague next year, will be the promotion of security and stability through good governance. As the Minister of State, Deputy Creighton, outlined in our national statement at the Vilnius meeting, Ireland firmly believes that weak and ineffective governance undermines economic development and exposes states to greater security risks.
Two preparatory conferences will be held on the governance topic prior to the forum in Prague in September. The first conference will take place in February in Vienna, at which the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Brian Hayes, will deliver the opening address. This conference will focus on anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing. The second conference is scheduled to take place in Dublin Castle from 23 to 24 April and it will focus on efforts to combat corruption and strengthen socio-economic development across the entire OSCE region. It will be an opportunity to highlight the work of our Criminal Assets Bureau as a model for other OSCE member states. Corporate governance and its ability to create a favourable business environment will also feature. The Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Alan Shatter, and the Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy John Perry, have agreed to address this conference.
As chair, Ireland will work with others to promote lasting settlements to a number of unresolved conflicts in the OSCE area, including those which involve Moldova and the breakaway territory of Transdniestria, Georgia and its breakaway entities of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan in regard to Nagorno-Karabakh. These are the three key frozen conflicts, as they are sometimes called, or protracted conflicts. They are residues of the break-up of the former Soviet Union and neighbouring states in the late 1990s and they are still high on the agenda for the OSCE. When we talk about conflict resolution efforts undertaken by the OSCE, nowadays it tends to focus on those three issues. In previous years it also involved conflict situations in the western Balkans but it tends now to be the two Caucasus region issues and the Transdniestria-Moldova issue.
As is usual practice, the Tánaiste, as chair-in-office, has appointed two special representatives to assist him in regard to specific conflicts. Mr. Pádraig Murphy, a former senior diplomat whose career has included appointments as ambassador to the former Soviet Union, Germany, Spain and Japan, will be a special representative for the south Caucasus, dealing in particular with Georgia, although he will also have a secondary role in regard to Nagorno-Karabakh. Mr. Erwan Fouere, who retired earlier this year as EU special representative and head of delegation to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, will be a special representative for Moldova, dealing with the efforts to resolve the long-standing dispute with the breakaway region of Transdniestria. Ambassador Fouere, who joined the European Commission in 1973 and is an Irish national, was the EU's head of delegation to FYROM, Mexico, South Africa and Slovenia in the course of his career.
Regarding Moldova and Transdniestria, we warmly welcomes the resumption of the formal OSCE five plus two talks, as they are called, the first round of which took place in early December in Vilnius. I will not go into detail on them at this stage but the five plus two format is a set of states which are most directly involved with the Moldova-Transdniestria issue and it is within that framework that we hope to achieve progress over the coming year. The Minister of State, Deputy Creighton, confirmed in our statement at the Vilnius meeting that Ireland stands ready to build on the momentum that has been recently achieved and we look forward to welcoming the parties to a follow-up meeting likely to take place in Ireland next year.
The situation in Georgia remains of concern and in this regard we strongly support the Geneva discussions. This is the only format in which all the parties to the Georgia conflict come together at regular intervals and have dialogue with each other. The so-called Geneva talks have not been making much progress but nevertheless they are a valued resource because it is only there that all the parties engage with each other. These discussions are crucial in terms of finding a way forward which all the parties can support. We also commend the continuing work of the OSCE's so-called Minsk Group in addressing the long-running dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh and we look forward to working closely with that group next year.
As indicated by the Tánaiste, in supporting these efforts, we will draw from our own experience of conflict resolution in the context of the Northern Ireland peace process, to encourage progress and facilitate engagement by all of the parties in the various conflict situations. In this regard, a one-day conference is planned for 27 April next at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, which will focus on Northern Ireland as a case study and will aim to draw on common themes which perhaps are applicable to conflict situations in the OSCE area.
The key calendar event next year - the big showpiece event - will be the ministerial meeting which will be a gathering of all foreign ministers from the OSCE participating states. This is scheduled to take place from 6 to 7 December in Dublin. Last week the equivalent meeting took place in Vilnius. It represents the main opportunity to agree ministerial decisions in the various policy priority areas. This will involve participation by all 56 member states and by 12 partner states - these tend to be countries in the Mediterranean region - at foreign minister level. It will be the largest gathering ever of foreign ministers to take place in Ireland. Currently, an e-tender process is under way to decide the venue for this event.
I hope I have not taken too much time to make this introductory presentation. Ireland, in chairing the OSCE, will work hard to pursue the principles and aims of the organisation. We plan to maintain a balanced approach across each of the three dimensions. As we said in the national statement made in Vilnius, it will be an honour for Ireland to make a tangible contribution to the promotion of European peace and security - European to be understood in a very broad sense - and we all look forward to this challenge.
