Ukrainian OSCE Chairmanship

Ukraine officially takes over the chairmanship of OSCE on 6/7th December 2012 at the OSCE ministerial council meeting in Dublin, when Ireland hands over, and will thus chair OSCE through 2013.

That on the back of some robust criticism by OSCE of the recent Ukrainian parliamentary elections - their final and authoritative report on said elections unlikely to be published before the OSCE chairmanship handover.

Also unlikely before Ukraine takes over the OSCE chairmanship is the swearing in of the new parliament subject to the recent elections and OSCE monitoring, which will be no sooner than 10th December and is more likely be 17th December.

One wonders if the 5 constituency seats that are to be re-run will also have taken place by 6/7th December as well - maybe, maybe not.

One cannot help but see some irony in the timing of all this.

Anyway, the Ukrainian agenda for its chairing of OSCE in 2013 is broadly outlined here.

In the mean time, today, the EU/Ukrainian cooperation committee meets in Brussels.  On that agenda - political dialogue, justice, freedoms, security, visa regimes, economics, energy and trade - much to go at there!