OSCE is the largest regional security organisation whose core operations are based on alerting, conflict prevention, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation. The organisation provides security and cooperation through its three main dimensions or areas of work: politico-military, economic and environmental and human dimensions. One of the specificities of its work is that the 57 Participating States take decisions by consensus.
On 12 October 1995, then The Republic of Macedonia joined the Organisation .
The OSCE Mission to Skopje was established in 1992 with the explicit mandate to prevent the spill over of the conflicts of the region. After 2002, there is a constant process of decreasing personnel in line with the results achieved. The activities of the Mission, which are established and implemented in close cooperation with the Government of the Republic of North Macedonia and are aimed at supporting national reforms, focus on the implementation of OFA, decentralisation, anti-discrimination, police reform, rule of law and areas related to good governance.
We are working closely with the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities, with the Representative on Freedom of the Media, as well as with the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). ODIHR Missions have been observing all the elections in the country since the 1998 parliamentary elections.
We have an active role within OSCE as reflected in the chairmanship of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Environmental Protection (in 2007), the election of our diplomat for OSCE Head of Office in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan (2009), as well as in the appointment of our representatives as heads of OSCE/ODIHR election observation missions in different Member States of the Organisation. In 1996 and 2012, we chaired the Forum on Security Cooperation, and in February 2018 in Vienna, we chaired the 28th Annual Implementation Assessment Meeting regarding OSCE’s Politico-Military Dimension. In 2016 we hosted the autumn session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. A significant number of representatives of the Republic of North Macedonia are participating in OSCE field missions, especially in Ukraine.
With all these activities we belong to the group of countries that have grown from consumers of this organisation’s assistance to spreaders of positive experiences and generators of stability.