Europe

Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis's participation in this year's OSCE Ministerial Council in Skopje provides an opportunity to spotlight the organisation's activities. The OSCE is a key platform for Switzerland to implement its foreign policy priorities for peace and security. People in the region benefit from the OSCE through its field missions, election observation missions and efforts to promote respect for human rights.

The countries of the Alpine arc share many common challenges. In the EU-Strategy for the Alpine Region (EUSALP), they are tackling them together. EUSALP was presided over by the Confederation and the cantons in 2023. At the annual EUSALP forum in Bad Ragaz on 19 October 2023 Switzerland officially handed over the wheel to Slovenia for next year. Explanations on the role and importance of EUSALP for Switzerland.

The Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) was set up in 1998 on the initiative of Switzerland, which has supported it financially ever since. Active in some forty countries, it transfers its expertise to mine-affected countries to help them in the fight against landmines. In Ukraine, the GICHD is helping to identify and plan humanitarian demining operations, explains its director, Stefano Toscano. Interview.

Russia's military aggression against Ukraine is also an attack on human rights, democracy and the rule of law – principles that the organisation works to uphold. But the Council of Europe has responded, says Christian Meuwly, permanent representative of Switzerland to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. And the principles of the Council of Europe also feature in the Lugano Declaration, which forms a political framework for Ukraine's reconstruction.

On 31 August 2022, the Federal Council approved the bilateral implementation agreements for Switzerland's second contribution to selected European Union (EU) states. This is an investment in stability, security and prosperity in Europe, as well as a further step on the bilateral path. We discussed this cooperation with Debora Kern (SDC) and Daniel Birchmeier (SECO), who, among other things, work together on the programmes that the contribution will fund in the field.

Switzerland has a long-standing commitment to stability in the Western Balkans and, through its international cooperation work, supports a wide range of projects covering vocational education and training, the promotion of dialogue, dealing with the past and waste management. FDFA State Secretary Livia Leu is travelling to Kosovo and Serbia at the end of June 2022 at a time when the impact of the war in Ukraine on the Western Balkans is still unclear.