United States Mission to the OSCE

11th Economic Forum

Delivered by Deputy Representative Douglas Davidson
to the Permanent Council, Vienna

June 12, 2003

Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you Mr. Swiecicki for your report. I would like to begin by thanking the conference organizers, and our Czech hosts, who make the Economic Forum so successful and enjoyable each year.

Mr. Chairman, having now attended two Economic fora, I join the chorus of those saying that each one is an improvement upon the previous one that occurred the year before, but that they all fall short of what we seem to want.

The efficiency, the success, and the results of the Economic Forum greatly influence the success and stature of the Economic and Environmental Dimension as a whole. As we struggle to strengthen the Economic and Environmental Dimension, we believe we have to take a new look at how we handle its premier event.

Despite improvements made over the years, the Economic Forum is still very much like a fourth Preparatory Seminar. It ends, with much still to be undertaken, just as the baton is passing to the incoming Chairmanship. The Dimension's focus thus turns to the next year's theme, and follow up to the Forum gets lost in the process.

We believe that we should ensure that the Forum is the Chairmanship's last major event with respect to its theme for the Dimension. After the Forum, the baton and focus should appropriately pass to the incoming Chair.

My delegation also feels strongly that we could enhance the Economic Forum, and with it the Economic and Environmental Dimension as a whole, by adjusting the clock, so to speak, and by ensuring that the process leading up to the Forum is staged in a way that produces real results.

At present, there is insufficient time to do anything "big" at the Forum -- however we define "big" -- because we run there breathlessly from the last Preparatory Seminar.

For the Forum to become a real working meeting, with concrete results or recommendations for consideration there, our experts will need a good two months between the third preparatory seminar and the Forum.

This would allow them time to evaluate the ideas and suggestions that emerge from the preparatory process, and to prepare viable proposals for further action. Discussions at the Forum should focus on concrete deliverables and follow up, not on a continuation of the preparatory seminars.

This, of course, means starting everything a bit earlier than we've grown accustomed to, but rigidity in our calendar has only contributed to frustration with the Forum itself.

First of all, the theme for the Economic Forum should be decided by the end of May. The new Chairmanship has tremendous work to do preparing for the Forum and should not lose the first few months waiting for approval of its theme. We owe it to the incoming Chair to make a timely decision in this regard.

With a theme decided by late May, work can begin on the preparatory seminars, the first of which could be held in September. At this pace, we could finish the preparatory meetings by late March, giving us the time necessary to translate the ideas the produce into something concrete.

The format that we've all come to accept at the Forum does not offer a compelling reason, other than duty, for senior officials from capitals to attend. Where the preparatory meetings must be technical, so must the Forum be political. It is no longer a true meeting of the Council of Senior Officials (or a Reinforced PC, in current parlance), because we've failed to give these officials a reason to come, or if they come, to stay.

If the content is right, participation will take care of itself. If the participation is correct, then results will follow.

We owe it to ourselves, and to this Dimension that we are trying so hard to bolster, to give the Economic Forum a chance to flourish.

Thank you.