The two-day meeting of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe's (OSCE) ministerial council starting on December 4 2008 will be dominated by discussions on the situation in the Caucasus and by the idea put forward by Russia and France for a new European security structure.

The ministerial council is the central decision-making and governing body of the OSCE. Convened in years when there is no OSCE Summit, it brings together the organisation's foreign ministers. The venue for this meeting is Helsinki currently holds the chairmanship of the OSCE, to be succeeded next year by Greece.

In a statement, the Greek foreign ministry said that at the Helsinki meeting, there would be an in-depth discussion of the situation in Georgia and the future of the OSCE mission in the region, the future of European Security, and French president Nicola Sarkozy's proposal for an OSCE summit meeting in 2009.

The discussion on Georgia takes place in the context that the conflict there may be seen as a failure of the role of the OSCE, which is a body inherited from the Cold War era when it was set up as a mechanism of communication and co-ordination between the West - in effect, the United States and Nato - and the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies.

At the Nato summit in Brussels earlier this week, foreign ministers agreed to use the OSCE meeting as a place to resume dialogue between Nato and Moscow.

Among several key issues is that of monitoring developments after Russian pledges to withdraw from areas into which it moved military personnel during the August 2008 conflict over Georgia's breakaway region of south Ossetia.

Speaking during the Nato summit, Greek foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis said in an interview with news agency Reuters that every effort would be made to try to return OSCE monitors to south Ossetia. The monitors withdrew during the August 2008 hostilities.

Earlier, in an interview on November 30 with Cypriot newspaper O Fileleftheros, Bakoyannis said that Greece was taking over the chairmanship of the OSCE at a very critical juncture.

"Amidst the most serious global financial crisis and following the events in the Caucasus, our country is called upon to co-ordinate the OSCE's role, an organisation participated in by the Cold War's former adversaries. 

"The crisis in August altered established perceptions about security in Europe. Now, important players such as the French and Russian Presidents are arguing in favour of building a new European security structure that will take into account Eurasia's geopolitical map, the European Union's enlargement, Nato's transformation and Russia's strategic role. So an open and substantial dialogue is needed," Bakoyannis said.

She said that the idea of an OSCE Summit some time in 2009 was gaining ground.

"Greece is prepared to organise this summit if it is given a clear mandate by the
(OSCE) participating states. It is willing to work systematically, and in a transparent manner, in order to ensure broad consensus among participating states, so that we will be able to build strong foundations for future stability and security," Bakoyannis said.

Media reports noted that it was questionable whether there would be clarity after the OSCE meeting on the question of a new European Security Structure, given that the idea currently is opposed by the US, and in any case, US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice - whose term in office expires along with that of the Bush administration on January 2009 - will not be attending the Helsinki OSCE summit.