Serbia’s Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Ivica Dacic and his Troika partners, Didier Burkhalter and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Foreign Ministers of Switzerland and Germany, announced yesterday the participants of the Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security as a Common Project. The Panel was launched at the initiative of the Swiss OSCE Chairmanship in 2014, in close cooperation and coordination with Serbia and Germany, at the OSCE Ministerial Council 2014, held in Basel on 4 December 2014.

The following 15 eminent persons will participate in the work of the Panel: Wolfgang Ischinger (Chair), Dora Bakoyannis, Ivo Daalder, Tahsin Burcuoğlu, Oleksandr Chalyi, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Jean Marie-Guehenno, Barbara Haering, Sergi Kapanadze, Sergey A. Karaganov, Malcolm Rifkind, Adam Daniel Rotfeld, Teija Tiilikainen, Kassum Jornart-Tokayev and Ivo Viskovic, whose biographic notes can be found here.
In line with its mandate, the Panel is designed to provide advice on how to re-consolidate European security as a common project. The Panel will, inter alia, prepare the basis for an inclusive and constructive security dialogue across the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian regions, reflect on how to rebuild trust between the participating states and on how to ensure effective adherence to the Helsinki Principles, examine perceived threats in the OSCE area and explore common responses and possibilities for the advancement of collective security, thus analyzing the special role of the OSCE in this context. The Panel will seek inputs from the participating states, the OSCE institutions, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, multilateral stakeholders concerned with European security issues, civil society, academic community and institutions and other relevant stakeholders.
“In addition to continuing efforts to restore peace in Ukraine, it is time to start addressing the broader crisis of European security too that has been aggravated by the recent developments and the Panel is to contribute to making progress in discussions on the topic”, the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office said”. “We should do the utmost to weaken the trend of distrust and polarization in Europe; gathering persons from all OSCE areas, the wide spectrum of different profiles and expertise, the Panel can make a useful contribution to that end and help the OSCE participating states in their efforts to determine the future path”, Burkhalter said. “When it comes to European security, we must discover ways of resuming the dialogue on how to restore security and cooperation in Europe. In that regard, the Panel can make a significant contribution to the OSCE”, Steinmeier said.
The first meeting of the Panel will be held on the margins of the Munich Security Conference, on 8 February 2015. The Panel will produce two reports: an interim report, in particular on lessons learned by the OSCE from its engagement in Ukraine and a final report on the broader issues of security in Europe and the OSCE area at large. Both reports will contain recommendations on action points for policy makers.