The OSCE Is Showing Its Age
// The Price of the Question
The world received the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe 33 years ago in Helsinki, and it has changed the entire character of relations between East and West. Now, at the age of Christ, the OSCE needs changing. There is no more Warsaw Pact, no more German Democratic Republic or Czechoslovakia, postwar borders have changed repeatedly and human rights are no longer the main cause of disagreement between the parties.
Nonetheless, the OSCE is still the only mechanism for the resolution of a number of issues, from peacekeeping to election monitoring. The mechanism is breaking down more and more frequently. Therefore, Russia and others have a feeling of dissatisfaction. That is why Russian President Dmitry Medvedev came out in favor of the creation of a new architecture for European security and new treaty relations that will not be based on a division of the continent into East and West.
In practice that is quite complex. The first question is whether it is necessary to change everything, or simply to make serious revisions in the OSCE. If everything has to be changed, that means starting a difficult negotiating process, writing new treaties and creating new mechanisms to implement them. Of course, that process will be complex and sometimes confrontational.
The second question is who will do it. In 1975, the member states did it. Today, there is the European Union, with its ever more common foreign policy. And there is Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union, many of which are represented in the OSCE only due to the logic of the collapse of the USSR. Who should participate in the new agreement? Will South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Kosovo?
The third question is what the new content will be. Borders, military security, energy security, rights and freedom – we’ve had that already. And who will enforce it all – some European mini-UN, or a purely technical agency?
In reality, we will have to agree on new rules for the continent that cannot conflict with the basic documents of the EU, nor the Russian Constitution nor other international and regional agreements. Of course, the main idea is to prevent crises and to find mutually acceptable solutions through the negotiation process.
And it should not be forgotten that NATO is striving to change itself into a global politico-military structure that will live by its own rules as well. The OSCE never made the rules for NATO.
Of course, the 21st century has remade many of the realities of European life, superseding principles that were important achievements in 1975. And it has ushered in questions for which there are no answers in the Helsinki agreement.
Those answers have to be sought. So maybe a new project should be launched, while remaining mindful of existing OSCE mechanisms. Then maybe, in 2010, 35 years after Helsinki I, we can sign a new document in that beautiful city that will serve long and effectively. That depends to a great extent on Russia’s position.
Andrey Fedorov, Director of political programs, Council on Foreign and Defense Policy; deputy foreign minister 1990-1991
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 05, 2008
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