Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly-Vanadzor

The Civic Solidarity Platform, a network of around 90 human rights NGOs from throughout
the OSCE region, convened the 2018 OSCE Parallel Civil Society Conference in Milano on 5
December, building upon the tradition of OSCE Parallel Civil Society Conferences held in
Astana, Vilnius, Dublin, Kiev, Basel, Belgrade, Hamburg, and Vienna from 2010-2017. At the
2018 conference, activists and experts from Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, France,
Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, the Netherlands,
Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, the United
Kingdom and the USA discussed and adopted the outcome documents of the conference,
developed by the Civic Solidarity Platform.

The outcome documents include the Milano Declaration on “Reviving the OSCE
comprehensive security concept, rebuilding democratic institutions, revitalising resilience
of our societies” and Civil Society Recommendations. The outcome documents are
addressed to the governments of the OSCE participating States that will be gathering in
Milano for this year’s meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council, as well as to all OSCE political
bodies and institutions, including the current and the incoming Chairmanships, Secretary
General, the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the OSCE Representative
on Freedom of the Media, the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, the OSCE
Parliamentary Assembly, the Human Dimension Committee, the OSCE Secretariat, and the
OSCE field missions.

We hope that this analysis and the recommendations that flow from it will be studied
carefully at the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting and further on throughout the year by all
OSCE actors. We look forward to reactionsfrom all interested stakeholders. We express our
commitment as civil society actors to continue actively engaging in the work of the OSCE in
the spirit of the Helsinki Principles, and are determined to contribute to the full realization
of the OSCE comprehensive security concept, respect for human rights and fundamental
freedoms, democracy and the rule of law throughout the OSCE region.

Civil Society Recommendations to the OSCE Executive and Political Bodies, Institutions, and Participating States adopted by the participants of the OSCE Parallel Civil Society Conference 2018