05/07/2012 President
Strasbourg, 05.07.2012 – PACE President Jean-Claude Mignon, addressing the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly today in Monaco, has hailed what he called the “growing complementarity” of the two parliamentary assemblies, and proposed a series of practical steps for them to work together better to observe elections, resolve frozen conflicts and co-ordinate their messages.
Election observation has become one of the main areas for co-operation between the two Assemblies, Mr Mignon pointed out, and there is now established practice on the basis of each body’s standards and guidelines: “Even if our members have occasionally had diverging opinions on the exact wording to use in our press release, on the whole, thanks to our reference standards and our shared political aims, we have always been able to achieve consensus between observers in assessing the democratic nature of elections.” He also looked forward to the forthcoming joint observation missions in Georgia and Ukraine.
Addressing the democratic transformations in the Arab world, the President outlined the sucessful creation of PACE’s “Partner for democracy” status. He also invited eligible OSCE member states to apply, pointing out that the Assembly was currently evaluating an application from Kyrgyzstan, and that this status was not only for states around the Mediterranean.
Finally, Mr Mignon raised the need to offer democratic assistance to Egypt, and again expressed deep concern at the situation in Syria.
Tomorrow the President will address the OSCE’s 2012 Mediterranean Forum, where he will outline the steps taken by PACE to support democratic transition in the region.