27May2015

The two-day Helsinki +40 OSCE Parlamentary Assembly Seminar is starting today at the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia. At the event, the Belgrade Center for Political Excellence will present a document on the role of non-governmental sector in the OSCE at the example of Serbia.

 

The meeting in Belgrade is divided into three thematic panels. Director of the Public Policy Research Centre Svetlana Djurdjevic Lukic will speak at the third panel dedicated to the OSCE Human Dimension, together with MP Gordana Comic and Milan Antonijevic, director of YUCOM. The panel is moderated by Meho Omerovic, MP and member of the Serbian delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.

 

The BFPE document speaks among other things about the coalition of civil society organizations, monitoring the Serbian Chairmanship OSCE, especially when it comes to compliance with the commitments regarding the Human Dimension.Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia, Lawyer’s Committee for Human Rights- YUCOM, Humanitarian Law Centre, Forum for Ethnic Relations and Public Policy Research Centre are the memebers of the Coordination Group of Civil Society Organizations (CSO) for monitoring of Serbia’s chairmanship of the OSCE and its obligations arising from the organization’s human dimension. The focus of the Coalition is on reporting on the fulfilment of OSCE commitments in the field of human rights in Serbia and recommendations for their improvement.

 

The seminar program can be found here.

 

The OSCE Dublin Ministerial Council initiated the "Helsinki +40 Process" as “an inclusive effort by all participating States to provide strong and continuous political impetus to advancing work towards a security community, and further strengthening co-operation in the OSCE on the way towards 2015”. 

 

The process was launched at the beginning of 2013 under the Ukrainian Chairmanship, which established the informal Helsinki +40 Working Group at the level of permanent representatives of the OSCE participating States.

 

The Helsinki +40 process started with an orientation  debate aimed at assessing threats and challenges in the OSCE space, the Organization’s place in the modern security architecture, and potential areas where its role could be strengthened to keep up with the security challenges of the 21st century.