Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs Benedetto Della Vedova has been in Helsinki since yesterday for meetings with the Finnish authorities and to speak at an informal high-level meeting of OSCE on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Helsinki Act establishing the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe, CSCE, that later became OSCE.
The meeting, apart from celebrating that anniversary, was dedicated to the crisis in Ukraine and to a reflection on the European security architecture, in light of the preliminary report by the 15-member “Panel of Eminent Persons on European Security as a Common Project” led by Wolfgang Ischinger.
Della Vedova met in Helsinki yesterday with the Italian parliamentary delegation of the OSCE Assembly: Senators Luigi Compagna, Cristina De Pietro and Emma Fattorini and Hon. Guglielmo Picchi, Emanuele Scagliusi and Marietta Tidei.
The under-secretary also met with Secretary General of the Organisation Ambassador Lamberto Zannier and recently appointed future Secretary General of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Roberto Montella. In his speech, Della Vedova underscored the fundamental role the Organisation plays in the context of the Ukraine crisis, along with “the importance for Italy of the Mediterranean dimension of OSCE”.
Della Vedova also held a long meeting yesterday with Finnish Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Samuli Virtanen, which whom he discussed some main international concerns such as immigration, the Ukraine crisis and developments in the Greek situation, as well as collaboration in the Arctic and bilateral economic and commercial questions.
