General Committee on Political Affairs and Security
The First General Committee focuses on the politico-military aspects of security, principles guiding relations among participating States, as well as military confidence-building measures.
Filippo Lombardi (Switzerland) was elected as the Chair of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly’s Committee on Political Affairs and Security at the 2017 Annual Session in Minsk.
He joined the Swiss Council of States in 1999 and is a member of the Christian Democrat Group representing the canton of Ticino. He served as President of the Council of States from 2012 to 2013.
Within the Council of States he is a member of the Drafting Committee and Political Institutions Committee; he serves as President of the Delegation to Maintain Relations with the Italian Parliament and as President of the Drafting Committee for Italian; he is also Vice-President of the Foreign Affairs Committee as well as Vice-President of the Delegation to the Council of Europe. He is a member of the Delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
He was appointed as Chair of the Ad Hoc Committee on Migration following its inception in 2016. He is also the Head of Switzerland’s delegation to the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.
Sofio Katsarava (Georgia) was elected to the position of Vice-Chair of the Committee on Political Affairs and Security at the 2018 after serving one year as Rapporteur of the Committee on Economic Affairs, Science, Technology, and Environment.
Elected to her national parliament in 2016, she serves on the Committee on European Integration and serves as Chairperson of the Foreign Relations Committee. She is Head of the Georgian Delegation to the OSCE PA and is also a member of parliamentary delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), NATO Parliamentary Assembly, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
She is a member of Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia. Having previously served 11 years at the British Embassy in Tbilisi, she became a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire with an ordination by Queen Elizabeth II for her involvement in strengthening relations between Georgia and the United Kingdom in the education sector.
Alan Farrell was elected Rapporteur of the Committee on Political Affairs and Security at the 27th Annual Session in Berlin. He has been Head of the Irish Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly since 2013.
In the Irish Parliament he is Chair of the Children and Youth Affairs Committee and serves on the Public Accounts Committee. He has previously served on the Justice, Equality and Defence Parliamentary Committee and the Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform Parliamentary Committee.
He is a member of the Fine Gael Party and represents North Dublin.