Skopje, 15 September 2022 (MIA) – Head of the OSCE Mission in North Macedonia, Ambassador Clemens Koja in regard to North Macedonia's 2023 OSCE Chairmanship said Thursday he told the authorities in the country that the focus should be on highlighting the impact and benefits of the OSCE work to the participating countries and the people living in those countries. Koja, who served in Vienna as the Chair of the OSCE Permanent Council during Austria’s Chairmanship of the OSCE in 2017, here in Skopje, he conveyed his experience to the authorities in order to have a more successful OSCE Chairmanship. At the event ‘North Macedonia and the OSCE: 30 Years of Partnership,’ Ambassador Clemens Koja and Minister of Foreign Affairs Bujar Osmani discussed the OSCE’s contribution to North Macedonia over the last 30 years, and North Macedonia’s priorities as the Organization’s upcoming chair. Ambassador Koja said that so far, he had held constructive and fruitful talks with diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to whom he conveyed his experience in the preparation and chairmanship of the OSCE. “I have a high regard for the Ambassador Djundev and his team in Vienna and for the team you have assembled here in Skopje to work together on the OSCE chairmanship. I have no doubt that they will do a great job in terms of presiding in a very difficult and complicated environment,” Koja noted, who is completing his term in the OSCE Mission. Referring to the 30th anniversary of the OSCE Mission's work in the country, Koja said that it went through several stages, starting as a small team, which monitored the eventual spillover of military conflicts from the north. The team expanded greatly during the 2001 conflict to reach its current capacity and the activities it has been carrying out for the past decade. “As you already know, the annexes in the Ohrid Framework Agreement include specific tasks for the OSCE, and some of the most important activities of our Mission were related to those tasks. For example, the Mission supported the deployment of police in areas affected by armed conflict, working with local authorities and the police to build mutual trust and prevent conflicts. Moreover, the OSCE Mission has trained a generation of policemen from minority communities in order to better integrate them into the police force. During my work at the Mission, we returned to this type of activity, creating a successful mentoring programme for women police officers,” Koja said. He also reminded that over the years of work, the OSCE team, most of whom are citizens of North Macedonia, supported the drafting of important laws, including the laws on the Ombudsman, on prevention and protection from discrimination, a series of laws relating to the justice system, and the support continues even today regarding the changes in the Criminal Code. “Surely, we all know that passing laws is often much easier than their implementation, and throughout the years of work, our Mission has invested a lot in training key stakeholders for the implementation of these and other important laws designed to improve the lives of the citizens of North Macedonia,” Koja said. He also mentioned the Mission's monitoring of court cases, which have great national importance. He added that the monitors, based on their observation, gave a series of recommendations on how to improve the judicial system. “While the OSCE in the country is well known for monitoring the elections, that work is primarily carried out by our colleagues from ODIHR. However, our mission has supported and contributed to the improvement of the work of the electoral authorities through our work with the State Election Commission. We have supported better access to voting rights for people with disabilities and helped educate young voters about their electoral rights and voting procedures,” Koja noted. He also reminded that the Mission worked for about seven years on a project called "Building Bridges", which supported joint activities at schools involving students from all communities, and different languages in order to increase interaction, understanding and integration in the school environment. “Among all those activities, I am the proudest of those that have the greatest potential to improve the people’s lives in the country. For example, we helped the Ministry of Interior to design a series of police professionalization strategies, which have been fully implemented, which will increase the security of citizens and ensure equal treatment by the forces in charge of maintaining order,” said Koja, adding here the judicial reforms, the digitalization of the courts, projects to ensure equality between women and men in the country. We also worked to support the efforts to fight corruption in the country, including the help of the State Commission for the Prevention of Corruption, local authorities and the Ministry of the Interior to start creating policies to strengthen the integrity of public institutions, Koja added. As one of the biggest projects of 2017, he mentioned the prevention of the small arms proliferation in the country, which contributed to greater security and the construction of 15 border police armouries and increasing the capacity of K9 units of Ministry of the Interior for weapons and explosives detection. He also expressed satisfaction with the Mission's COVID-19 response fund. “That fund provided grants to 11 local non-governmental organizations to finance the work to support the groups that were most affected by the pandemic, for example the victims of domestic violence and their children, as well as people with disabilities,” Koja said. Regarding the current security situation in Europe and what is the future of the OSCE, he expressed the assurance that the OSCE, as the only regional organization in Europe with such a large number of members, continues to play an important role in relation to the tragic events due to the war in Ukraine. “As Secretary General Schmid also stated during her visit to North Macedonia at the Prespa Forum, the OSCE remains present and committed to supporting Ukraine’s population in these extremely challenging times and will continue to do so. Of course, the war has further effects on Europe and Eurasia. OSCE field operations are closely monitoring the situation and adapting their work in order to continue providing support for the real needs governments and communities face every day,” Koja said.