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ITF Chair Ambassador Karel de Beer's Blog: New Post

16.09.2011

Ambassador Karel de Beer, ITF Chair, writes a blog to share the work and activities of the Chairmanship.  To read his newest post, please click below.

15 September 2011

At the invitation of OSCE/ODIHR I visited Krakow on the 1st of August to attend and participate in a workshop on Roma and Sinti and the Holocaust. I was joined by Karen Polak, the Head of the Working Group of the ITF dealing with the subject. It was a "full house" that had assembled and discussed the various aspects of the plight of the Roma and Sinti in the Second World War. Many young people attended and the Chair of the ITF got quite a number of questions during one of the workshops.

The next day I attended the remembrance service at Auschwitz together with my colleague Douglas Davidson, US Head of Delegation, who was one of the speakers.

Impressive is the best description of the event and for me personally, I thought it was important (and appreciated) that the ITF was there.

The second half of my chairmanship started off with a conference call on the Terms of Reference of the Country Reporting Mechanism on September 1. Last year in Haifa the Plenary decided to introduce such a mechanism with the aim of sharing best practices and to contribute to member countries' efforts to promote the Stockholm Declaration. I support this initiative wholeheartedly because it underlines the notion that full membership in the ITF is not a final goal, but a continuous endeavor to implement the Stockholm Declaration.  It is important that member countries have the opportunity to report every now and then on the progress they have made, their successes, and their challenges.  I would like to stress that this mechanism should not become a huge (administrative) burden to governments in terms of manpower and money. In the conference call I asked the countries that initiated this system to comment on the draft Terms of Reference. Based on the discussion I am confident that I have now enough inputs to allow me to table a proposal at the Plenary in December so that we can then start with the first round of Country Reporting next year.

Probably the most important element of my White Paper is the multi-year work plan. In my view the work plan is an instrument to structure the activities of the ITF bodies and to set priorities. It can also be beneficial in communicating the work of the ITF to the outside world.  It goes without saying that the Working Groups are pivotal in the preparatory stage and the implementation of the Work Plan. Therefore I had asked the Working Groups for input and convened a one-day meeting with the Chairs of the Working Groups in Berlin on September 5. It is a real challenge to identify issues that are appealing to all ITF Working Groups and delegates, are highly relevant to experts as well as diplomats, and have an impact on the outside world.  I do not think this blog is the right place to introduce ITF's priorities for the next 3 years, but I can assure you that we have made good progress. The next few weeks Working Groups steering committees are going to draft outlines for the identified priorities. I would like to call upon all Working Group delegates to contribute to the drafting and implementation of the future ITF multi-year Work Plan.

From Berlin I flew to Ljubljana to discuss the Slovenian application for full membership in the ITF. In previous blogs I mentioned that many countries "translate" ITF's mandate to local circumstances. Slovenia is no exception to this. In order to put Slovenians application into a historical perspective I visited the Slovenian Museum of Contemporary History. It is an interesting museum about a country which experienced a turbulent 20th century.

Two things struck me: as in so many countries that I have visited before, a young, energetic director is heading the museum and constantly thinking about how to improve the museum and keep it interesting for the visitors.

Secondly: all (recent) histories of countries are special and that is certainly also true for Slovenia with a complicated war history, which is of course reflected in the collection and composition of the museum. The museum is a starting point for a discussion about the history of Slovenia.

I was quite surprised to hear that during World War II Ljubljana was fenced around with barbed wire to prevent people leaving or entering the city. Today the barbed wire has been replaced by a 38-kilometer bicycle path. As a Dutchman I could not leave Ljubljana without cycling a part of this historic track.

The next day I had interesting discussions with the minister of Education, Mr. Igor Lukšič, the minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Samuel Žbogar, Ms Sonja Kralj Bervar, Director-General for Cultural Development and International Affairs at the Ministry of Culture, and the Slovenian Head of Delegation, Ms. Eva Tomic. The emphasis in all meetings was on the commitment of the Slovenian Government to join the ITF as full member; not as a final destination, but as a next step in a continuous process to implement the Stockholm Declaration. Therefore, we discussed some ideas for projects in education and remembrance that could implemented in the years to come. I hope we can welcome Slovenia as a new member country on December 1 in The Hague.