OSCE Faces a Choice
Donetsk, July 30, 2014
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In the run-up to the international seminar “Helsinki +40: Prospects for strengthening the OSCE”, which will be held by the Russian International Affairs Council, we talked to Professor Andrei Zagorski of MGIMO University, head of department at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and RIAC expert, about the role of the OSCE in resolving the crisis in Ukraine and about the future of the organisation.
In the run-up to the international seminar “Helsinki +40: Prospects for strengthening the OSCE”, which will be held by the Russian International Affairs Council, we talked to Professor Andrei Zagorski of MGIMO University, head of department at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and RIAC expert, about the role of the OSCE in resolving the crisis in Ukraine and about the future of the organisation.
Andrei Vladimirovich, what’s your view of the OSCE’s anti-crisis potential at this moment? Is the organisation capable of playing the role of the main instrument for preventing and resolving crises in Europe?
The choice of instruments at the OSCE’s disposal for responding to crisis situations in Europe is quite broad. It’s a lot more impressive than it was in the 1990s, when the Organisation often had to improvise but at the same time played a more prominent role in resolving crises.
The Ukrainian crisis has shown that the OSCE has forgotten to make flexible and creative use of the potential that it has. In the context of the crisis it has effectively proved to be the only multilateral European arena which has succeeded, albeit with difficulty, in finding consensual solutions with regard to the measures that might be taken in response to the unfolding situation.
The OSCE promptly deployed a special monitoring mission in Ukraine, and it could have done this even more promptly if the member states had agreed on the details of this mission’s mandate earlier. Energetic efforts to agree the parameters for resolving the crisis were made and continue to be made by Switzerland, which currently holds the chairmanship of the organisation and proposed the first “road map” to resolve it. The creation of a contact group in which the current Chair’s representative, the experienced Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini, is taking the role of chief mediator, was a logical consequence of the efforts made by the Swiss OSCE chairmanship. The fact that a ceasefire protocol was signed in this setting, that its detailed implementation was discussed in the contact group and that functions in monitoring and verification of the agreements reached were assigned to the OSCE has secured for this organisation the role of the main forum in which further steps aimed at resolving the crisis will be discussed and implemented.
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Of course, we must not forget that the situation in South-East Ukraine still remains complex and unstable. It’s too early to speak of success in de-escalating the conflict, or of how well the OSCE’s functions in resolving it have been defined. It is not yet clear what authority the organisation will be given in the interests of consolidating the ceasefire regime and implementing the other clauses of the 5 September protocol. All this is a process which at any stage can falter (and is faltering) as a result of disagreements between those involved.
What do you think are the most important steps that must be taken to strengthen the organisation? What are the main lessons to be drawn from the Ukrainian crisis for the OSCE?
The Ukrainian crisis has once again emphasised the lack of political procedures for a rapid response to crisis situations in the earliest stages of their escalation, before events run too far ahead. This is not a new problem. It was the same in 2008, when the political escalation around Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the spring forced everyone to think about more effective preventative measures, but decisions on this were not taken in time because of radical differences in the positions taken by the interested states.
Efforts to address the issue of a rapid response by the OSCE to crisis and conflict situations run into two main problems, and if these are not solved we will not be able to achieve a substantial strengthening of the organisation, and its activity in the context of the Ukrainian crisis will remain just an episode which does not change the general trend towards the OSCE’s marginalisation in the European security architecture.
The first problem is the extremely low negotiating power of the OSCE member states, which has consistently and rapidly declined over the last 15 years. This has resulted in a paradoxical situation: today the OSCE has incomparably greater operational capacity and experience than in the 1990s, but they are much less in demand than they were in the first decade after the end of the Cold War – mainly because the organisation is a hostage to the consensus of its main members, and this is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve.
The first problem gives rise to the second – the OSCE’s declining ability to compete in the European market for services in preventing and resolving conflicts and in resolving crisis situations. In the last 15 years other European organisations, and especially the European Union, have acquired many roles which in the 1990s were considered the exclusive remit of the OSCE.
Interview with Spencer Oliver, the OSCE
Parliamentary Assembly Secretary General
These days the EU is increasingly – and especially in the context of the weak negotiating power of the OSCE’s member states – becoming (at times unwillingly) the main actor in efforts to resolve crises. This trend is most marked in South-East Europe: it was the EU, not the OSCE, that succeeded, in particular, in resolving the growing armed conflict in Macedonia at the beginning of the last decade and averted a conflict between Serbia and Montenegro over the latter’s intention to declare independence. But we can also see examples of the OSCE’s “displacement” by the European Union in the post-Soviet area. Thus in 2008 and at the beginning of 2009 the OSCE member states were unable to reach agreement on extending the OSCE mission’s mandate in Georgia (and the same fate befell the UN military observers’ mission in Georgia). As a result the UN observers’ mission in Georgia, which was deployed in October 2008, remained the only major international presence in the conflict zone.
The solutions being proposed today – in particular, to increase the financing and to strengthen the staffing of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre and to expand its service functions – will solve neither the problem of the OSCE member states’ negotiating power nor that of the organisation’s falling competitiveness in comparison with other European organisations dealing with security issues. For example, there are no problems with financing the work of the OSCE’s special monitoring mission in Ukraine, nor have there been from the very beginning. The same goes for its staffing. So different solutions are needed here: solutions that would allow the OSCE to react promptly to crisis situations as an impartial and independent structure without having to wait for the organisation to achieve a definitive consensus.
Various proposals concerning this have been discussed in the OSCE over the last five years. They remain, however, the subject of fierce dispute, since some of the member states, afraid of finding themselves in the minority in one situation or another, insist that the principle of consensus is inviolable. This is a delicate matter which requires delicate solutions. But if these decisions are not taken and the OSCE in some way proves incapable of acting as an independent and impartial organisation, the burst of activity it has undertaken in response to the Ukraine crisis will remain an episode in its history and not a turning point.
Could you comment on the results of the recent Minsk meeting, and also on what results might be expected from the next Minsk meeting, planned for the near future? In your view, is the chosen format of the Contact Group effective for resolving the Ukraine crisis, bearing in mind that the USA is not taking part in the Group’s meetings? What is the OSCE’s main contribution to the current activity?
The Minsk process is indeed a process: a series of ongoing meetings within the framework of the contact group. It is also a hostage to the policies of the sides in the conflict. At the stages when they think they can resolve the conflict on their own terms by means of unilateral actions, including military action, this process dies down. It moves forward when the sides show they are ready to reach agreement, as happened when the ceasefire protocol was signed on 5 September.
One has only to look at the protocol itself to understand that the majority of its provisions need to be made more specific on an agreed basis. If not, conflicting interpretations of the protocol by the parties that signed it will lead to a general breakdown of the agreements that have been achieved.
For example, what does “to ensure monitoring and verification by the OSCE of the non-use of weapons” mean? The Conflict Prevention Centre is urgently addressing issues linked with the growth of the mission’s staff and with the question of equipping it with the technical resources it needs to fulfil the objectives of monitoring and verification, including unmanned aerial vehicles. Fulfilling these objectives, however, depends to a large extent on clarifying the mission’s mandate, the areas where the mission will be deployed, the guarantees for the security of personnel, etc. All these matters should also be agreed with the parties involved in the conflict.
What does “implement the decentralisation of power, including through the adoption of the Ukrainian law ‘On provisional local self-government in some areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions’ (the Law on special status)” mean? The last meeting of the contact group in Minsk was devoted precisely to the issue of the sides’ differing understanding of what “special status” should be.
What does “ensure the continuous monitoring of the Ukrainian-Russian state border and verification by the OSCE with the creation of a security zone in the border regions of Ukraine and the Russian Federation” mean?
All this is subject to discussion and to the sides’ achieving an agreed understanding, like many other provisions of the protocol. The only current format for the relevant negotiations is the contact group. Whether this format will be effective or not depends above all on the negotiating power of the sides that have signed the protocol – representatives of Ukraine and Russia, and also of Donetsk and Luhansk.
The USA’s non-involvement in the work of the contact group is not a decisive factor in its success or failure. Washington itself took the decision not to take part in its work. It currently has several other more important problems, in particular in the Middle East, Iraq and Syria. If the work of the contact group proves successful in terms of further de-escalating and resolving the crisis in Ukraine on condition that Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are respected, Washington will welcome the results it achieves.
What future do you predict for the OSCE?
The OSCE and its member states are facing a difficult choice today. Maintaining the status quo in the organisation and leaving it a hostage to the negotiating power of the member states will mean a further loss of competitiveness for the OSCE in comparison with other European organisations dealing with security issues. In this case the organisation faces further marginalisation, and partial success in resolving the Ukraine crisis will remain just an episode in its history.
Taking delicate decisions that expand the area of independent activity for the OSCE’s structures and institutions, primarily with regard to a prompt response to crisis situations and also multilateral verification of the few agreements that remain in force in the area of armed forces controls in Europe, could give the OSCE a new lease of life.
The year 2015 will mark the fortieth anniversary of the signing of the Helsinki Final Act. The OSCE member states could make this an opportunity to hold a high-level European meeting and make some crucial decisions for the organisation aimed at substantially strengthening it and increasing its capacity to act. If they let this opportunity slip and opt to maintain the status quo, they will be ignoring the lessons of the Ukraine crisis as well as those of previous crises and will contribute to the further marginalisation of the OSCE in the European security architecture.
Interview by Natalia Evtikhevich, RIAC Program Manager
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