The first day of the Annual Session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, which is being held in Istanbul from 29th June to 4th July of this year, was marked by the meeting of the Standing Committee, Inaugural and Plenary sessions.

At the Standing Committee meeting, consisting of chairpersons of national delegations and members of the Bureau, the Resolution on Strengthening Trust, Transparency and Responsibility, submitted by the chairperson of the Ad Hoc Committee for Transparency and Reform (Francois De Donnea), was supported, and then nineteen resolutions and addendums were forwarded to consideration to the line committees which will discuss them in the following two days, while five resolutions will be considered at the Plenum. At the General Committee meeting, the Proposal for Budget for 2013/2014 was supported, which, unlike the previous budget year, had been increased by 4.9 per cent.

The Standing Committee meeting was also marked by the discussion of cooperation between OSCE and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). With that regard, the necessity for promotion of cooperation through establishing mechanisms which would more precisely define provisions regarding actions of the two sides in the election observation process was pointed out.

At the Plenary Session, the parliamentarians were addressed by the president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Mr Wolfgang Grossruck, OSCE Secretary General Mr Lamberto Zanier, Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey Mr Cemil Çiçek, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Mr Leonid Kozhara, as well as the OSCE Special Representative on Gender Issues Ms Hedy Fry, and the Chairperson of the Permanent Delegation of Turkey to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Mr Emin Onen.

During their address to the parliamentarians, the interlocutors agreed that the representatives of the national parliaments need to be more active, if they want to have a strong role within the international community. Additionally, the agreement was reached regarding the need to promote the parliamentary, but also the governing dimension. The Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey Mr Cemil Çiçek spoke on the need to combat racism and xenophobia, as well as the OSCE priorities, but also the cyber safety and humanitarian crisis in Syria. 

The Annual Session is continued tomorrow with the meetings of the general committees.

At the 22^nd Annual Session of OSCE PA, the permanent delegation of the Parliament of Montenegro is participating, in the following composition: the President of the Parliament and Head of Delegation Mr Ranko Krivokapić, and the permanent members, MPs Mr Milutin Simović and Mr Goran Danilović.