On January 23-25 CivilM+ platform members conducted the seminar “Support of international negotiations on conflict resolution in Donbas: problems and prospects”. During the first day of the seminar the participants were joined by the diplomats from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany and experts from OSCE to discuss in detail available negotiations formats for Donbass, their strong and weak sides. It was noted that beyond visible for everyone high level meetings of negotiators there is an ongoing dialog on the level of Deputy Ministers of foreign affairs and heads of departments of all four countries engaged in the peace negotiations for the conflict resolution in eastern Ukraine. There is a coordination between parties involved in different negotiations formats, such as Normandy, Minsk process and Volker-Surkov dialog. Diplomats noted that beyond political issues, where the progress is hard to reach, it is very important to use the platforms created for the negotiations to discuss practical issues such as ecology, access to water, or electricity, freedom of movement, where all parties might be interested in reaching progress. Even though the main trustworthy source of the information for the diplomats is OSCE SMM, it was noted that reports prepared by the NGOs often are useful and valuable helping to shed the light on particular issues.

On the remaining days of the seminar, the participants were discussing possible formats of the cooperation and the inputs NGO community can provide to the negotiations process.