Thank you, Mr Chair.
Secretary General, welcome back to the Permanent Council. Thank you for your presentation and for your continued leadership at the Council of Europe, which remains central to the UK’s human rights and foreign policy agenda.
The UK values the longstanding relationship between the OSCE and the Council of Europe, grounded in our shared commitment to human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. These principles underpin our work in Vienna and Strasbourg and are essential to both individual freedoms and economic prosperity.
We meet at a time of serious challenge to European multilateralism, with Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified war in Ukraine presenting a challenge to the rules by which we all agreed to abide. We urge all OSCE participating States to uphold our shared commitments. We must not allow aggression to undermine the international rules-based order.
The UK strongly supports Ukraine’s accountability efforts. We were proud to Chair the Conference of Participants for the Register of Damage until last week, which now includes over 160,000 claims. We commend the Council of Europe’s leadership on the Claims Commission Convention, which was opened for signature in December, and welcome the adoption in Chisinau last month of the resolution establishing the Enlarged Partial Agreement on the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine by 34 Council of Europe member States including the UK, as well as the EU, Australia and Costa Rica.
The Council of Europe and the OSCE have complementary roles in promoting democratic values, including media freedom, gender equality, and free elections. Our memberships are not the same but both organisations face similar challenges such as democratic backsliding. It is therefore more important than ever to coordinate effectively, to minimise duplication and overlap and focus on the two organisations’ respective mandates and comparative strengths to maximise impact, particularly in a time of constrained resources. We would be interested in your reflections on that.
In this spirit we welcome your initiative to create a New Democratic Pact for Europe, bringing stakeholders together to address democratic backsliding, impunity, and authoritarianism.
Secretary General, the UK remains a steadfast supporter of both organisations. We wish you and your team every success.
Thank you, Mr Chair.
