Lavrov: Russia proposes 'shake-up' OSCE structure

The organizational structure of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) needs a "shake-up," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said. "The organization really needs a shake-up. A shake-up is also needed in the OSCE's organizational structure, which is exactly what all the proposals that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was talking about are aimed at," Lavrov told journalists, summing up the results of the Russian participation in the OSCE summit in Astana on Wednesday.

Earlier the OSCE "already got a serious shake-up" when the Russian president put forward an initiative to work out a European security treaty, which prompted the Corfu process that ended in the elaboration of "quite good consensus" recommendations.

"It was a shake-up of the content of the organization's work, but for the understandings of this content, which are taking shape, to start materializing a shake-up is needed in the organizational structure," Lavrov said.

Russia put forward its proposals on a draft OSCE charter as the organization has no charter as such, nor other bylaws, he recalled.

"Our draft charter was prepared jointly with other OSCE members, it is our joint initiative, it has been under the OSCE consideration for quite a long time now, it is an absolutely necessary step for the OSCE to become a proper international organization," Lavrov said.

Together with other partners as co-authors, Russia proposed introducing clear rules for the functioning of OSCE mechanisms, including the Bureau of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, OSCE field missions in various countries, including "budgetary procedures that are currently extremely opaque and closed," Lavrov said.