Greece with foreign minister Dora Bakoyannis takes over the OSCE chairmanship - updated

Since January, 1, Greece has taken over the chairmanship of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) from the Finns.

Their foreign minister Alexander Stubb has been blogging several times during the Finnish chairmanship, notably during the Russian-Georgian crisis, which called my attention earlier this year. I doubt that Dora Bakoyannis, number 78 on the Forbes list of the most powerful women and first female foreign minister of Greece, will get the attention of the European blogosphere with extensive online appearance.

According to the OSCE press release - which is aggressively general - the most important issue seems to be Georgia:

In particular, we intend to proceed with a swift and co-ordinated course of action to try and find a compromise arrangement that would allow the Organization to continue its activities throughout Georgia, in order to assist all efforts for the peaceful resolution of the crisis.

The last time we have heard about the OSCE was in early December, when the Russian proposal to establish a new pan-European security strategy was rejected by the rest of the OSCE countries. The only remark in the press release is that Greece will "build on the discussions" at the ministerial OSCE Council in Helsinki, which means that on the diplomatic level they cannot bury the initiative but it won't come up politically.

The next OSCE presidency (2010) will be held by... Kazakhstan, a nation that ranks particularly low in all fields of democracy and good governance, according to the 2008 Freedom House "Countries in Transit" report.

Update (22 January 2009)

Oops, have I been deliciously tagged by Ms Bakoyannis personnally today...?