PART II  Commitments Related to Structural Components of a Democratic Society 83 Brussels 2006 (Decisions: Decision No. 19/06 on Strengthening the Effectiveness of the OSCE) The Ministerial Council, (…) 1. Thanks the ODIHR for the work carried out under Ministerial Council Decision No. 17/05 paragraph 2 and takes note of its report issued on 10 November 2006; (…) 3. Reminds the participating States that they should keep their legislation and practices in line with OSCE commitments; 4. Takes note of the assessment regarding the present state of implementation of existing commitments by participating States and emphasizes, in particular, that participating States themselves are responsible for the effective implementation of their commitments undertaken in the OSCE. The ODIHR, in this respect, plays an important role in assisting them; 5. Tasks the Permanent Council, taking into account the recommendations by ODIHR and other relevant OSCE institutions, to address the implementation challenges in the areas outlined in the report, considering making better use of ODIHR assistance; 6. Takes note of the suggestions in the report relating to new commitments and requests the Permanent Council to advise on them, in time for the Ministerial Council meeting in Madrid in 2007; (…) 8. Commits to further develop OSCE’s election related activities, and in this context, reaffirms the provisions of the Document of the Copenhagen Meeting on the Human Dimension of the CSCE (1990) as the corner stone of the common OSCE commitments of the participating States to protect and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms, including those that are necessary for achieving democratic elections; 9. Notes that relevant provisions of the Budapest Summit Declaration (1994), the Lisbon Summit Declaration (1996), the Istanbul Summit Declaration (1999), the Charter for European Security (1999) and subsequent decisions of the Ministerial Councils of Porto (2002) and Maastricht (2003) have supplemented those commitments; 10. Reaffirms the commitments of the participating States to invite observers to elections from other participating States, the ODIHR, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and appropriate institutions and organizations that wish to observe; 11. Emphasizes that the participating States can themselves effectively contribute to enhance the integrity of the electoral process by seconding observers; (…)