At a joint press conference of the newly-elected president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President Ilkka Kanerva and the outgoing Secretary General Spencer Oliver at the closing of the Assembly’s 2015 Annual Session, a journalist asked when would Kosovo be allowed to participate in OSCE forums to which the speakers replied, “Kosovo will be accepted to OSCE in a not so distant future”. President Kanerva added that the issue is to an extent related to the fact that five EU countries have not recognised Kosovo as an independent country but that sooner or later they will accept its existence. Oliver explained that out of 57 OSCE member countries, “one or two were against Kosovo’s participation in the annual meeting in Helsinki” and since the OSCE functions on consensus, Kosovo was unable to take part in the forum.