Mr Chairman
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen
Dear Colleagues
I would like to thank the Irish Chairperson-in-Office, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, for having organized this working lunch.
The keyword is stability. It is the heart of Swiss foreign policy strategy. And it is also the core of our well-being and security for decades.
Switzerland is stable, politically, financially, economically, socially, culturally since more than a century. This stability has brought us a huge amount of well-being and security.
What we need is an organization that can not only adequately react to present and future challenges, but one that can anticipate threats and address them before they become tensions or conflicts.
An organization that can contribute to stability.
It should be a common endeavour of all of us to adopt a decision that will enable concrete and realistic actions to be taken in the coming years.
A ministerial decision on “Helsinki+40” outlines the framework and defines a tasking to the coming chairs of the OSCE.
It must be our common ambition to outfit different domains with concrete and realistic measures. For example :
- revitalising the dialogue on arms control
- modernise the regime on confidence and security building measures (CSBMs)
- addressing transnational threats
- or enhancing the economic and environmental dimension
In addition, over the next years, we should – in a much more systematic manner - work with civil society and the academic community.
Of course a process is not spectacular – and we will not be able to announce big results and tremendous decisions tomorrow. But it is efficient.
It is in the very nature of our Organization to advance in stages so as to decide, at the end of each stage and by consensus, on what it is possible to implement in practice.
Each of the stages reached is just as crucial as the concluding results. The path is as important as the goal.
Switzerland would like to strengthen the OSCE as a forum for dialogue and cooperation on regional security issues.
From the very beginning, Switzerland has recognized how vital this Organization is for security in Europe as well as for our own national security.
The OSCE is a unique provider of stability and security.
Switzerland has a tradition to act as a bridge builder and honest broker with the aim of finding a balanced solution that suits all of us.
Dear colleagues, we might have reached a point, where we have to learn to agree to agree, instead of to agree to disagree.
We would be pleased if Switzerland could contribute to a strengthened OSCE.
The Chairman-in Office has an important steering function in the Organization. Switzerland is ready to closely cooperate with Ukraine and Serbia over the coming three years.
It goes without saying that we want this to be an inclusive process that is owned by all participating States. We want to build bridges and we need all of you to be able to do it.
Furthermore, it is also important to stress that the future OSCE Chairpersons-in-Office must work closely together with the Chairpersons of the Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC).
Switzerland hopes that we are united in this endeavour.