Belarus and Russia adopted a joint statement at the 22nd Winter Meeting of the OSCE PA

The 22nd Winter Meeting of the OSCE PA took place in Vienna in a hybrid format on February 23–24.

In her address to 250 parliamentarians from 52 countries participating in the winter session, Margareta Cederfelt (Sweden), President of the OSCE PA, recalled the historic role of the OSCE PA in providing a forum for open, honest and frank dialogue based on shared values and commitments.

 

Meeting participants included delegations from all European countries, including the CSTO Member States.

 

Andrei Savinykh, Chairman of the Standing Commission on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives of the National Assembly of the Republic of Belarus and head of the Republic’s delegation to the OSCE PA, pointed to the distorted logic of the collective West mirroring the postulates set forth in George Orwell’s dystopia 1984. He noted that it was Orwell who in his novel predicted the future of the collective West, which says that peace requires an increase in the supply of offensive lethal weapons to Ukraine.

 

Pyotr Tolstoy, head of the Russian delegation and deputy Chairman of the State Duma, noted that at the session, “the entire audience is influenced by the American narrative in relation to Ukraine.”

 

Johan Büser (Sweden) introduced a concept note of a report and a draft resolution for the annual session in Vancouver. “The pandemic, military conflicts, socio-economic inequality, refugee crisis, racism, oppression of women, journalists and human rights activists are just some of the many challenges we face,” he said.

 

The Economic and Environmental Committee discussed, in particular, ensuring affordable, safe, clean and sustainable energy sources in the OSCE region.

 

Valiant Richey, OSCE Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, called on all OSCE participating States to step up efforts to combat human trafficking.

 

As you may recall, in November 2016 the CSTO PA adopted Recommendations on the Improvement of the National Legislation of the CSTO Member States Concerning the Definition of Various Types of Human Trafficking.

 

Following the session, the Belarusian and Russian delegations to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly adopted a joint statement calling to preserve this inter-parliamentary platform for dialogue with the West in the future.

 

“Russia and Belarus have consistently advocated pragmatic engagement with all states of the world on the basis of mutual consideration of interests and the principle of equal and indivisible security,” the statement stresses.