On 22/23 October 2009, the Lithuanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs convened an informal meeting to discuss Lithuania’s preparations for its 2011 OSCE Chairmanship. CORE, which had acted as a co-organizer for this conference, was represented by its Head, Dr Wolfgang Zellner. As it brought together three distinct groups of participants, the meeting had quite a unique character. The first group consisted of high-ranking state representatives from the USA, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein and Lithuania, among them the Lithuanian Foreign Minister, Vygaudas Usackas. The second was made up of representatives of international organizations, i.e. the Secretary General of the OSCE, Marc Perrin de Brichambaut, and the EU Special Representatives for the South Caucasus, and for Georgia and Central Asia, Peter Semneby and Pierre Morel. The third group comprised staff members of (international) NGOs such as the International Crisis Group, Freedom House and the Institute for Public Policy (Moldova). Accordingly, there were a lot of – sometimes complementary, sometimes cross-cutting – perspectives which made the discussion particularly animated and interesting. The broad agenda ranged from the Corfu Process to conflict resolution, to economic and human dimension issues. At the same time, the meeting marked the birth of the ‘Friends of Lithuania’ club which will, most probably, meet again next year.

Contact: Dr Wolfgang Zellner