"The OSCE Chairmanship is a special challenge"

As Romania passed on the mantle of the Chairmanship to Portugal at the beginning of January, Ambassador Liviu Bota of Romania, former Chairman of the OSCE Permanent Council, shared his thoughts and reflections on what it meant for his country to have had executive responsibility for the OSCE in 2001.

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In 1999, Liviu Aurelian Bota was in his 27th year of serving with the United Nations when he was requested by the Government of Romania to head the OSCE Chairmanship team in Austria. The country had been chosen at the Istanbul Summit in November that year to hold the Chairmanship-in-Office position in 2001.

Ambassador Bota has held the positions of Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research in Geneva and Director and Senior Adviser under the Secretary General for Human Rights.

He was also Head of the United Nations missions and Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General in Tajikistan and Georgia, where he dealt with the conflict in Abkhazia.

How would you like the Romanian Chairmanship to be remembered?

Rather than repeat what the Foreign Minister of Romania, Mircea Geoana, reported in December to the Ministerial Council in Bucharest, I would like instead to share with you some personal impressions. Of course the events of 11 September in the United States have changed the world to a large extent and the prompt reaction of the OSCE under our Chairmanship will be remembered.

When we took over the assignment in 2001, the Organization was at a crossroads. The Ministerial Council in Vienna in 2000 could not adopt any important decisions. It was clear that a stage in the post-Cold War period was over. It was obvious that lessons had to be learned and we did that.

We initiated a 'revisit' of the whole Organization and its methods of work. We thought that instead of beating around the bush, we had better face the criticisms of the Organization. This is why we included an item on the agenda of the Permanent Council called "Strengthening the role of the Organization and making it more relevant to the participating States". The Romanian Chairmanship will be remembered for initiating this process, which will continue under a working group on the reform of the OSCE.

We looked at the three dimensions of our work - the human dimension, the political-military aspect, and economic and environmental matters. The human dimension is one of the traditional activities of the OSCE. As for the military aspect, sometimes it's more prominent, sometimes less. But the economic dimension has always been underestimated and our Chairmanship pointed to its importance. Eventually, we managed to establish a sub-committee of the Permanent Council on the economic and environmental dimension. We intend to continue to follow this area with interest.

We have enlarged the political dialogue and consultations and made them more active. For us, all voices were important and we made a major effort - and to a large degree we have succeeded in involving more actively all countries in political consultations.

I would stress that we have introduced new themes for reflection. Among them, let me point to the informal meeting of the Permanent Council with the participation of a number of eminent personalities on ethical and spiritual values as factors of peace and stability. The aim was to identify a role for the OSCE.

My own Chairmanship of the Permanent Council will probably be remembered by the change in agenda, methods of work, as well as the increased discipline. The Council now focuses on current issues as the first item on the agenda. The statements are short and to the point. The meetings start at the announced hour and the atmosphere in this august body is dignified.

We initiated the adoption by consensus of political statements on current issues, which have been made public. The first such statement was on developments in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Another welcome innovation was to conclude the discussions on reports of Heads of Missions and Institutions with a statement by the Chair, synthesizing the general direction of the debate and giving further orientation.

But perhaps the most important feature of the Romanian Chairmanship was our providing leadership. We were not merely following or reacting to developments. We maintained the strategy and course of action we had set out to do from the very beginning. From that point of view, we were both consistent and persistent.

What do you think the one-year Chairmanship of the OSCE meant to Romania?

We proved our ability to manage the problems faced by the Euro-Atlantic area on behalf of the participating States. By serving the Organization the way we did, we served the loftiest interests of our own country. The Chairmanship is entrusted to the country as a whole, not just to an individual or two - and so the whole country's ability to run the Organization and to manage the problems in the OSCE area is put to a test. I believe that our performance in the Chair will have a role to play in the consideration of Romania's candidacy to NATO and the European Union.

I believe that our Chairmanship was in keeping with the Romanian tradition of distinguished service to international organizations. Before the Second World War, Nicolae Titulescu, a prominent Romanian diplomat, was elected twice as President of the League of Nations Assembly. The first East European ever to be elected President of the United Nations General Assembly, in 1967, was Romanian - Corneliu Manescu. Romania's contributions to the work of the United Nations and the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe [the predecessor of the OSCE] were remarkable. I would like to think that at the OSCE, we have continued these traditions.

Do you have any advice to offer the next Chair of the Permanent Council?

To take the Chairmanship seriously. When you take over the Chair, you should know almost every problem facing the OSCE very thoroughly, including the concerns of all the participating States, because you don't have time to learn once you are in the post. The Chairmanship should be strong and reject attempts to undermine its authority.

Any personal thoughts at the end of Romania's Chairmanship?

My records show that I presided over 60 meetings of the Permanent Council and 150 informal meetings. I enjoyed working with all my colleagues and am indebted to all of them for their support. So many things happened during the course of the year, it is difficult to identify the most momentous events.

We had a good, very close working relationship with the Secretariat. Together, we managed the activities of the OSCE efficiently including opening the Mission to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, re-opening the OSCE office in Chechnya, enlarging the Spillover Monitor Mission to Skopje in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, organizing the successful election in Kosovo. The Institutions and the entire Secretariat staff provided us with valuable support and were a source of advice and ideas. We appreciated their professionalism and their readiness to assist.

Of course it was a lot of hard work. Throughout the year, we started our working day at 8 a.m. and finished long after 8 p.m. I have been blessed with a great team here in Vienna which included Ambassador Traian Chebeleu, who is also bilateral Ambassador of Romania to Austria, and a small team of competent, enthusiastic and energetic young people. More important, I had the full confidence of the highest authorities in Romania. As you know we had as Chairman-in-Office, the Foreign Minister Mircea Dan Geoana, a young, dynamic and brilliant public servant who spent a lot of time on behalf of the OSCE in various regions and in points of conflict in co-ordination with other organizations. He is generally admired.

In the history of diplomacy of any country, I believe the Chairmanship of the OSCE is a very special one in terms of complexity of tasks entrusted to any one country. That is why when you finish it successfully, there's a feeling of pride and satisfaction. This is my feeling, one which is shared by the entire team of the Romanian Chair in Vienna.