Slovakia concludes its Chairmanship of the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation

VIENNA, 14 March 2018 – Concluding Slovakia’s Chairmanship of the OSCE Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC) in Vienna today, the country’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE and Chairperson of the Forum Ambassador Radomír Boháč said Slovakia strived to be an impartial facilitator of the discussions amid growing polarization and diverging views among participating States.

“The crisis in and around Ukraine dominated the discussions at the Forum for Security Co-operation,” he said. “As far as our mandate allowed us, we strived to be an impartial facilitator of the discussion among the participating States, which is key to addressing the current lack of mutual trust in the region. Truth be told, the growing polarization that underlies the current atmosphere is the exact opposite of what the OSCE, or previously the CSCE, was meant to be bring about.”

He said that Slovakia’s FSC Chairmanship aimed for a balanced and impartial agenda that could contribute to sincere and open discussions within the OSCE.

“We built upon the work of previous Chairmanships of the Forum for Security Co-operation to ensure the continuity of efforts and to push for much-needed progress in some of the Forum’s files,” he said.

He recalled that over the course of its FSC Chairmanship, Slovakia had facilitated Security Dialogues that emphasized the importance of transparent and reliable military information. It had explored how the work of other organizations on non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and small arms and light weapons (SALW) complements that of the OSCE and looked at the synergies and benefits of regional co-operation initiatives.

Countering the illicit spread of SALW and securing stockpiles of conventional ammunition were important topics for the Slovakian FSC Chairmanship. It facilitated discussion on projects undertaken in this field by other international organizations and also organized a Security Dialogue to prepare participating States for the Third Review Conference on the Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in SALW, which will be held in June 2018, in New York.

Other initiatives undertaken during Slovakia’s Chairmanship were the joint Permanent Council-FSC meeting on Security Sector Governance and Reform and the hosting of the Annual Implementation Assessment Meeting, where Boháč said he noted “the willingness of participating States to improve transparency and predictability among themselves and to increase trust and stability in Europe through existing confidence- and security-building measures.” 

Handing over to the FSC Chairmanship to Slovenia and his counterpart at the Slovenian delegation Ambassador Andrej Benedejčič, Boháč pledged Slovakia’s full support to the Slovenian and Swedish delegations for their upcoming FSC Chairmanships this year as well as to Italy’s 2018 OSCE Chairmanship.