First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic attended the Foreign Ministers’ meeting of the EU Member States and candidate countries in Riga.

“EU Member States and candidate countries’ Foreign Ministers met in Riga today. The theme of the Meeting was EU neighbourhood, not the one of the EU aspirant countries but the Eastern and Southern EU Neighborhoods.
In consultation with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, I briefed the EU Foreign Ministers on the OSCE activities concerning the resolving of the conflict in Ukraine and on a number of frozen conflicts in the OSCE region that is part of the Eastern and Southern Neighbourhood.
As the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, I highlighted all activities that Serbia currently undertook in the negotiations on the extension of the mandate of the OSCE Mission in Ukraine, which expires on 21 March.
There are different ideas about the number of observers. One idea is to increase their number to 1,000 but there are also countries that seek cutting of funds allocated by the OSCE participating States. The process of harmonization will be necessary and the role of the Chairman-in-Office will be important to that end.
We expect that a decision on the extension of the Mission’s mandate from 6 to 12 months will be taken at the OSCE Permanent Council meeting to be held on 12 March, which would be one of the outstanding successes of our Chairmanship”, the Head of Serbian Diplomacy pointed out.