Organized by the office of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities this conference took stock of the role played by the HCNM in the conflicts and transitions in Europe in the 1990s and reflected on the future challenges for the HCNM in advancing peaceful interethnic relations in the OSCE area and beyond.

In my contribution I emphasised that, given the persistence of minority-majority tensions and conflict across the OSCE area and beyond, the institution of the HCNM remains as relevant today as twenty years ago, and I examined three specific areas in which the HCNM has a future role to play: monitoring, preventive quiet diplomacy, and policy transfer.