Response to 2nd Committee Chair Kairat Sarybay
As delivered by Acting Deputy Chief of Mission Gregory Macris
to the Permanent Council, Vienna
December 20, 2018
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The United States welcomes back Ambassador Sarybay in his capacity as Chair of the OSCE Second Committee. We thank you for your leadership and for promoting a collaborative approach among the committees.
Ambassador, the United States recognizes the important role of the Second Dimension to our comprehensive security. We were pleased to see the Committee’s forward-looking approach, in close coordination with the Italian Chairmanship, in focusing on digital transformation. Your leadership helped ensure the two Ministerial Council texts’ ultimate passage. While the OSCE is not a lead organization on the digital economy, understanding the concepts and the impacts is important to our effectiveness.
We look forward to the Slovak Chair building on these themes over the next year, especially as it prioritizes energy security in the digital age. We look forward to seeing how the Second Committee incorporates these issues into the broader economic and energy discussion, for instance in the areas of protecting critical energy infrastructure, stress testing, energy demand forecasting, energy efficiency, anti-corruption, and citizen responsiveness.
We appreciate the broad range of issues your committee discussed this year, as well as your efforts to promote greater self-reporting. The OSCE has reached consensus on a long list of important issues to address. We encourage you to focus on these agreed upon priorities and not commit your limited resources to subjects for which consensus does not exist. We look forward in the coming year to continuing the OSCE’s good work in: fighting corruption and organized crime, strengthening the rule of law and good governance, promoting trade and transport, preventing and responding to natural disasters, and advancing energy and economic security.
Once again, the United States joins other delegations in expressing its appreciation for your leadership. Your committee’s work embodies the OSCE’s comprehensive concept of security, and you have our full support.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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