On Friday (11 July), Foreign Minister Steinmeier will meet the new Director of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), Michael Georg Link, at the Federal Foreign Office.

Michael Georg Link has headed the OSCE institution in Warsaw since 1 July. From 2012 to 2013, he was Minister of State for Europe at the Federal Foreign Office, where his remit included the European Union’s Eastern Partnership and the OSCE.

With a staff of over 130 and an annual budget of around 15 million euros, ODIHR is not only the central OSCE body in the human rights sphere but is also regarded as one of the world’s most important regional human rights institutions.

Its activities focus on election observation missions as well as on the promotion of democratic and rule-of-law standards in the 57 OSCE participating states.