e-Forum director Baudouin de Sonis chaired a workshop on Kazakhstan’s 2010 chairmanship of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), on 14 July 2010 in Brussels. The OSCE is an organisation of 56 countries, with a mandate from the United Nations to deal with crisis situations: their monitoring and prevention, and conflict resolution and post-conflict rehabilitation. The OSCE deals with a wide range of issues, including arms control, preventive diplomacy, strengthening of confidence- and security-building measures, human rights, observation of elections and economic and environmental security.

The 14 July session, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Brussels, was entitled ’Kazakhstan’s Chairmanship of the OSCE: outcomes and new perspectives’. Speakers were Yerik Utembayev, Ambassador of the Republic of Kazakhstan in Brussels; Jacques Rosiers, President of the Euro-Atlantic Association of Belgium; Bogdan Marcinkiewicz MEP, Member of the Delegation to the EU-Kazakhstan Parliamentary Cooperation Committee; and Struan Stevenson MEP, personal representative of the OSCE Chairman in Office on environmental issues.

Kazakhstan has said that its priorities for its OSCE chairmanship will be dealing with protracted conflicts, such as in former Soviet states, the politico-military dimension and non-military aspects of security, and economic, environmental, and human aspects of security. Kazakhstan has also said it will aim to strengthen the OSCE’s governance structures.

For more information about the workshop, contact Baudouin de Sonis. For background information about Kazakhstan’s chairmanship of the OSCE, visit http://www.kazakhstan-osce.org/.