Naujienos

Your Excellency Minister Roćen,
Secretary General Zannier,
President Efthymiou,
Ambassador Cogan,
Ambassador Radulović,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Please allow me to express the sincere gratitude of the Lithuanian OSCE Chair to Montenegro for hosting this event and for their warm hospitality.

Your Excellency Minister Roćen, by hosting us today in Budva, you have provided an exquisite venue for our exchange of views and ideas. Your country also shows what can be achieved through the support that the OSCE is offering to its Mediterranean Partners.

Montenegro’s enthusiastic embrace of the tools and best practices available through the OSCE, and your country’s remarkable success in using these tools in a wide-ranging reform process, are truly an inspiration for our discussions.

At this point, I will mention with pleasure and pride that the current Head of the OSCE Mission to Montenegro is Ambassador Šarunas Adomavičius, a Lithuanian. His personal qualities as a diplomat have contributed greatly to the success of the Mission‘s work.

Let me also take this opportunity to thank the Irish Chair of the Mediterranean Contact Group. Your engagement in supporting dialogue and co-operation between OSCE participating States and Mediterranean Partners has been extremely valuable for all of us.

I sincerely hope that this Conference will produce concrete ideas on how OSCE participating States and our Mediterranean Partners can enhance mutually beneficial co-operation, ideas which will be accepted by all of us and transformed into action.

Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

This year has been special for the OSCE Mediterranean Partnership. The dramatic changes we have witnessed in some of our Mediterranean Partner states and in other states in the region clearly resonate with the experience of participating States within the OSCE region.

I have a real understanding of the mixture of hopes and fears, opportunities and problems, which face a society during such a transition.  I represent a country which faced a similar situation exactly 20 years ago, when Lithuania regained her freedom and had to start creating a new political and economic environment.

Lithuania, like other Central and East European countries at this time, was fortunate to receive the assistance of various foreign countries and international organizations in this process. One of the most useful and effective ones was the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the OSCE.

The OSCE has considerable experience and expertise in supporting countries during transitions, to create democratic institutions and civil societies.
Its approach to stable and democratic development is multi-dimensional, built on the interaction of the political-military, economic-environmental, and human rights dimensions.

As the 2011 OSCE Chair, Lithuania has worked tirelessly and with conviction to promote a close dialogue with the Mediterranean Partners.

The OSCE Chairman in Office, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Audronius Ažubalis, publicly expressed solidarity with the democratic aspirations of the peoples of Tunisia, Egypt and our other Mediterranean Partners for Co-operation.

Minister Ažubalis visited Tunisia in April, ODIHR Director Janez Lenarčič made a trip to Morocco in May, and I personally went to Egypt in the beginning of June. All three teams included experts from the OSCE Chair, Secretariat, and ODIHR. High-level discussions were held with host government officials concerning possible OSCE assistance during this transition. Each Partner Country has been provided with a list of projects from which they will be free to choose according to each country’s needs, priorities and timing.

One of the first subsequent invitations was from the Tunisian government, whose “High Independent Commission for Elections” invited the OSCE to observe the upcoming elections of the National Constituent Assembly on 23 October 2011.  The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly has agreed to send election observers.

Civil society plays a vital role in any successful and sustainable democracy. This principle is enshrined in the OSCE’s founding documents. It has been reaffirmed this year by the “Arab Spring.” For this reason, in all the countries visited this year by the OSCE delegations, contacts were also made with NGO representatives.

About 40 government officials, NGO representatives and journalists from Mediterranean Partner countries have taken part so far this year in regular and special events and trainings organized by the OSCE. Another training, on election observation, for civil society representatives from Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia, will be held by ODIHR here in Budva after this Conference.

Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

The idealism, optimism and enthusiasm of the “Arab spring”  has captured the imagination and the sympathy of the whole world. As a participant in analogous events 20 years ago in Lithuania, I can personally testify to the emotional truth of the English poet William Wordsworth’s words when he wrote, describing another historic uprising,

''Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very Heaven!''

However, we should remember that he was writing about the French Revolution, which eventually produced the Reign of Terror and the Napoleonic dictatorship, both sources of oppression and international instability for many years.

Creating and maintaining a sustainable transition to a stable, modern society is a complex process, and it makes the process both faster and more secure to learn from the successes and, yes, the mistakes of other countries.

It is clear that each country is unique in its culture, its priorities and the path that it chooses to take. The OSCE has learned this lesson very well in its own area.  Yet the experience acquired from many diverse transitions is reflected in the flexibility of the OSCE “toolbox,” that can provide a useful resource for our Partners, just as OSCE participating States themselves have benefited from the sharing of various experiences and best practices.

Given the diversity of our histories, cultures and personal backgrounds, the interaction between the OSCE and its Partner Countries presents a natural forum for working together to promote understanding and tolerance, and to struggle against discrimination of all kinds.

At the Astana Summit, our heads of state and government acknowledged that security in the OSCE area and security in the Mediterranean are “inextricably linked.”  You are our neighbors, and we must work together in a common effort to make our two areas a secure, modern, democratic and prosperous part of the world.

The OSCE stands ready to share its experience and expertise concerning transitions, but only to the extent and in the way that each Partner Country desires. A clear and concrete invitation from the interested Partner Country is needed to start the process, and the Partner Country retains ownership of any co-operative projects, with the right to modify them to suit its needs.

Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,

We believe that the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting on 6-7 December in Vilnius will be very important for relations between the OSCE and the Partners for Co-operation.

A Ministerial Council statement is being prepared which would enhance the level of dialogue and co-operation between the OSCE participating States and Partner Countries, making our Partnership even more effective and concrete.

This statement will be one of the important issues discussed at the meeting of the OSCE Troika foreign ministers with the Mediterranean Partners for Co-operation being organized by the Chair on 5 December, the eve of the Ministerial.

We expect Minister-level participation at the Ministerial, and trust that the Mediterranean Partner Countries will join in helping to shape the necessary decisions and in expressing their high-level political support for an enhanced Partnership.

This Mediterranean Conference in Budva provides an excellent opportunity to start elaborating a new vision for our Partnership.  I look forward to following the debates in the three sessions that lay ahead of us.

Thank you for your attention.