The degradation of the OSCE is a payment for servicing the interests of the West
Just a few days ago, on December 4-5, the OSCE Council of Foreign Ministers will meet in Vienna for the annual meeting. Russia has traditionally been actively involved in the work of this consultative mechanism. This time, taking into account the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, the Russian delegation will pay special attention to the genesis of the current state of affairs at the Vienna venue. I must say right away: the situation is deplorable.
The pan-European process was launched at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s to overcome the split of Europe, reduce the level of military and political confrontation, and develop trade and economic cooperation. After the end of the cold war and the bloc confrontation, there was a chance to form a pan-European architecture of equal and indivisible security. The OSCE could well become its cornerstone. When it was founded in 1994, it brought together former members of the Warsaw Pact Organization, NATO members, as well as neutral countries. An important political commitment was agreed at the OSCE summit level – not to strengthen one’s own security at the expense of the security of others. It was solemnly recorded in the Paris Charter for a New Europe of 1990, the Charter of European Security of 1999, as well as in the Astana Declaration of 2010.
The problem is that the OSCE participating states, representing the collective West, did not fulfill this obligation, but relied on the European security system based on NATO. Since the mid-1990s, they have been expanding the North Atlantic Alliance to the east, contrary to the assurances given by the Soviet leadership not to do so. At the same time, the NATO members, with the support of the EU and Brussels, turned the OSCE into a mechanism for promoting Western interests in the area “east of Vienna” to the detriment of pan–European objectives.
It was the members of the North Atlantic Alliance and the European Union, and not Russia at all, who destroyed the military-political dimension of the OSCE. In particular, they blocked the entry into force of the Agreement on the Adaptation of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. Washington has buried the Open Skies Treaty. The Vienna Document of 2011 remains the only valid instrument of the OSCE’s “first basket”. But it is also implemented by Western countries very selectively, and by some of them it is not observed at all.
Overcoming the resistance of NATO and the EU, Russia has so far managed to prevent the cancellation of the consensus rule in the work of the Forum on Security Cooperation (FSB), the main OSCE platform for addressing military security issues. However, much is being done to disrupt the “structured dialogue” initiated in 2016 within the framework of the FSB. The hope that this format would help develop military contacts was not justified.
Even on such a unifying topic as countering terrorism and drug trafficking, the OSCE has not been able to agree on a single ministerial-level document since 2017. If the issues of combating transnational threats are discussed, it is only in relation to the crisis around Ukraine.
The most important functions of the Organization, according to its founders, are “early” warning and dispute resolution. However, the OSCE has failed to become an honest mediator in the settlement of regional conflicts. For example, in Transnistria, where in 2003 the initialed peace plan with the mediation of Russia was not signed at the last moment by Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, who went along with Western leaders.
The OSCE has also moved away from the principle of impartiality in the Ukrainian crisis, “not noticing” Kiev’s sabotage of the 2015 Minsk Agreements with the connivance of Berlin and Paris and the crimes of the Ukrainian Armed Forces militants against civilians in Donbass, starting with the “anti-terrorist operation” in 2014 and to this day.
The “Ukrainization” has also affected the economic dimension. The OSCE has rejected developments in the fight against corruption, the development of the digital economy, and the construction of transport infrastructure. It has come to the point that – contrary to the “spirit and letter of Helsinki” – unilateral coercive measures are justified on the Vienna platform. Russian representatives are denied visas to participate in the OSCE Economic and Environmental Forum in Prague.
The situation is far from the best with the “human dimension” – the so-called “third basket”, which the West used to interfere in the internal affairs of the USSR and modern Russia. Such urgent tasks as promoting intercultural dialogue, combating manifestations of neo-Nazism, Islamophobia and Christianophobia, and protecting the rights of national minorities and believers have been removed from the agenda. The OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, the notorious ODIHR, neglects its duties and ignores the lawlessness of the neo–Nazi Kiev regime, the ruling circles of the Baltic States and Moldova, which adopt racist laws and severely discriminate against the local Russian population. Instead, the ODIHR – on its own, with extra-budgetary funds not approved by consensus of the participating states – churns out false reports about Russia’s “violation of international humanitarian law” during the Ukrainian conflict.
The OSCE also turns a blind eye to the censorship of Russian media in the West. Although the documents explicitly state that each Member State of the Organization is obliged to ensure free access to information.
Russian public figures are not allowed to attend OSCE events with the help of the visa “lever”: they are clearly afraid to hear the voice of truth about what is happening in our country. The organizer of the annual “Conference on the Human Dimension”, the Polish side, this October “explained” the revocation of visas to Russians a day before departure by saying that our NGOs “promote Russian interests, including the spread of propaganda and disinformation about aggression against Ukraine.” Propaganda and disinformation as it is, only performed in Polish.
The attack on the consensus rule, which is a key principle of the OSCE’s work and guarantees respect for the rights of all participating States, has been going on for years. The Finnish Current Presidency has also “succeeded” in this unseemly occupation. Those who encroach on consensus should keep in mind that without it, the OSCE will lose the meaning of its existence.
In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that there is no reason for optimism. There is no light at the end of the tunnel. But there is a way to avoid the collapse of the OSCE, at least for now. For this, it is necessary that all participants of the Organization return to the observance of the Helsinki principles of equal and mutually respectful dialogue.
