Let me begin by thanking the Romanian Chair for your excellent and professional skilful leadership of the OSCE this year.

The OSCE has grown rapidly in recent years, in importance and in scale. The OSCE was a priority for us during the Swedish presidency of the EU, and remains so today.

Therefore, we support a strengthened OSCE secretariat, to provide support to the field missions and the Chairman in Office.

Therefore, we support the important role of the Parliamentary Assembly in pursuing OSCE commitments to legislation in their national parliaments.

Therefore, we support even closer co-operation with partner organisations and institutions, including the idea of establishing an OSCE liaison in Brussels for contacts with the EU and Nato headquarters.

Close co-operation is of course specially needed in the field. This year, the OSCE has responded swiftly and successfully to new challenges in Macedonia. Kosovo is another good example where the OSCE successfully prepared and conducted the recent elections. For the first time, the OSCE is an integral part of an operation led by the United Nations, and the OSCE also closely co-operates with other partners, such as the Council of Europe and the European Union. It proves the possibility to do this successfully and I hope we will see this more often in the future.

Mr Chairman,

I like to mention four priority areas for the OSCE:

First, human rights and the rule of law are core tasks which must mark all OSCE dimensions.

The OSCE institutions remain important cornerstones in this work: the successes of the Office of the HCNM are evident. The ODIHR has during its ten years of existence played an important role in promoting democratic elections and providing practical support in building democratic institutions. It has also been able to show that small scale projects focused on conflict prevention can make a difference.  

Second, trafficking in human beings, a new form of slavery, is now increasing in Europe. The latest figure, a UN estimation from 1995, states that half a million women and children are smuggled into the EU each year. According to data from Europol and Interpol, the number is even increasing each year. We must get effective and coordinated measures to fight trafficking. We strongly support the Action Plan presented by the Task Force on Trafficking in Human Beings within the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, which aims at structural changes to overcome trafficking in the Balkans.

Third, small arms are the poor man's weapons of mass destruction. Over the past ten years, they have been responsible for 90 per cent of the casualties of conflict, killing more than three million people, two thirds of them civilian.

Today, an estimated 500 million small arms are in circulation. They are easy to come by, easy to conceal, simple to use and difficult to control. And we see the consequences in Sierra Leone, in Tetovo, and in our own streets and schoolyards. Child soldiers, common criminals or terrorists with semi-automatic guns constitute a major threat to human security.

At our ministerial meeting last year in Vienna we adopted a document on small arms and light weapons, that must now have an impact on OSCE activities in the field. The improved co-operation between the Forum for Security Cooperation and the Permanent Council makes this possible. Experts advising on how to handle the problem of small arms should be sent out on field missions.

Last but not least, the OSCE has got a new task. This year, we have witnessed terrorism on an unprecedented scale. The fight against international terrorism is a huge challenge to us all. In this global struggle under UN umbrella, we should make use of the strengths and comparative advantages of the OSCE. The Action Plan on Terrorism, prepared under able Danish chairmanship, will guide our joint endeavours. A great advantage of the OSCE is its broad security concept and extensive field presence, for instance in Central Asia.

The OSCE has also an important role to play so that we, however firm we need to be against the terrorists, never set aside  human rights and the rule of law in that struggle.

And we must never blur the line between the fight against international terrorism and the fight against domestic opposition.

All this is of fundamental value for the credibility - and thereby also for the efficiency - of the fight against terrorism.

Finally, let me again express my gratitude to Romania for an excellent chairmanship and welcome the incoming Chairmanship in Office, Portugal.

Thank you.