Poland assumed the year-long chairmanship of the OSCE on January 1, with the country’s top diplomat Zbigniew Rau becoming the organisation’s Chairperson-in-Office.
On Thursday, Rau is set to attend a session of the OSCE’s Permanent Council in Vienna, where he will speak about the programme and priorities of the Polish chairmanship, public broadcaster Polish Radio’s IAR news agency reported.
The foreign ministry’s spokesman, Łukasz Jasina, told reporters ahead of the gathering that Poland was aware that its role “coincides with serious challenges for peace and security" in its region.
Jasina said that Warsaw sought to use the OSCE as a forum for dialogue about key global challenges.
He added that Warsaw was determined to “make the OSCE more efficient” and “energise the work of the organisation."
“In the course of the year, we will also continue to try and reshape the OSCE’s budget so that the organisation has more resources and potential for action,” Jasina said, as quoted by the state PAP news agency.
Among other objectives, Poland will work to ensure the rollout of COVID-19 vaccination programmes in areas affected by armed conflicts, Jasina told the media.
A year of solving conflicts
“It will be a year of solving conflicts which are mounting, a year of trying to pass on our knowledge and our competencies related to history,” Jasina said.
He added: “Currently we are facing numerous problematic issues, from military assaults, through a crisis of the security architecture, to prisoners of conscience in many countries. Poland will be seeking to significantly alter this whole situation.”
Jasina told reporters that "in the field of security," the main topic of discussion would be "the threat of further escalation of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine."
He pointed out that the OSCE brings together not only European countries, but also the United States, Canada and the Central Asian nations including Kazakhstan.
Altogether the OSCE groups 57 countries with a combined population of more than 1 billion.
Poland’s chairmanship of the organisation in 2022 is the second time Warsaw has assumed this role, with the country's previous turn at the helm in 1998, the PAP news agency reported.
(pm/gs)
Source: IAR, PAP