News

On 19-23 July in Vienna, the team for Lithuania’s Chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) from the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and employees of Lithuania’s Permanent Representation to the OSCE in Vienna are participating in the training at the OSCE Secretariat. The training is intended to prepare personnel for Lithuania’s chairmanship of the OSCE in 2011.

Diplomats from Ireland, who are preparing for the upcoming OSCE chairmanship in 2012, are also participating in the training activities.

Teams of the upcoming chairmanships are acquainted with practical principles of the functioning and management of the OSCE institutions and field missions, coordination mechanisms, they are discussing important issues related to the activities of the organization in all three dimensions - the politico-military dimension, the economic and environmental dimension, as well as the human dimension.

The team for Lithuania’s Chairmanship of the OSCE are familiarizing themselves with the organization’s internal procedures and rules that will help ensuring effective leadership of this regional organization in 2011. Current security challenges, methods for formulating priorities of the upcoming chairmanship and for organizing work are discussed during the training sessions.

With 56 participating states and by the means of consensus-based decisions, the OSCE seeks to achieve comprehensive security in the region from Vancouver to Vladivostok. This year, the organization is chaired by Kazakhstan. Lithuania, Kazakhstan and Greece, which held the OSCE Chairmanship last year, constitute the troika.

On 16-17 July at an informal meeting in Almaty, foreign minister of the OSCE countries agreed to recommend holding a meeting of heads of state and government in Astana this year. Currently, the OSCE participating states are negotiating on agenda items of Review Conference that is due prior to this meeting and on the date of the summit.