The Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Angelino Alfano, is attending the informal meeting of the OSCE Foreign Ministers, hosted by the Austrian Presidency at the Mauerbach Castle, near Vienna. The meeting represents the major preparatory event prior to the OSCE Ministerial Council scheduled to take place in Vienna on 7 and 8 December.
In Mauerbach, Minister Alfano is scheduled to speak at the plenary session to highlight the important commitment that Italy has undertaken within the Organisation: “As a member of the OSCE Troika and as Chair of the Mediterranean Contact Group, we will take the relay from the Austrian Presidency to chair the Organisation in 2018. We feel very honoured and have accepted the task with a sense of responsibility, being aware that in order to re-establish confidence and security ‘from Vancouver to Vladivostok’, we need to unrelentingly pursue dialogue and cooperation.”
Two are the major themes on top of the agenda: preventing and fighting violent extremism and radicalisation, which generate terrorism, and relaunching dialogue on the challenges to security, with a view to re-establishing a sustainable European security setting. Minister Alfano also intends to focus the OSCE’s attention on the issue of migration and human mobility in the Mediterranean: “These are challenges – also from a security point of view – as well as opportunities, which will be the theme of the OSCE Mediterranean Conference that Italy will host in Palermo on 24 and 25 October”.
In between the traditional family photographs and a working lunch, the Minister will also hold bilateral meetings with his colleagues, Russian Foreign Minister, Sergeij Lavrov, and Swiss Foreign Minister, Didier Burkhalter.
