On July 31 and August 1, hundreds of officials and politicians will gather in Finland to mark the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act.
This agreement is considered a culminating moment in reducing tensions during the Cold War, with 35 countries – including the Soviet Union and the United States – agreeing on many principles after two years of talks, known as the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
This subsequently shaped the geopolitical architecture of the wider European continent and laid the foundation for what later became known as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
At first glance, there are many reasons to celebrate, reports A2.
And Finland, which took over the OSCE chairmanship earlier this year, is playing an important role.
On July 31, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will deliver speeches in Helsinki and then participate in high-level panels where various topics will be addressed and the future of the OSCE will be debated under the motto: Respect, Respond, Prepare.
The Finnish presidency will use the opportunity to launch the "Helsinki+50 Fund" – an initiative that aims to increase voluntary funding for the Vienna-based organization.
However, many question whether the OSCE still serves its original purpose.
A big deal
In 1975, the OSCE represented a major agreement between the democratic West and the communist East.
The Helsinki Final Act was welcomed in Moscow as it confirmed the status and inviolability of the borders existing in Europe at the time. It implied continued Soviet dominance over the Warsaw Pact countries and, de facto if not de jure, recognition of the annexation of the Baltic states.
But it also created three areas of future East-West cooperation: political and military affairs; economic and scientific cooperation; and perhaps, most importantly, human rights.
While the Soviet Union initially thought it had "won," it was actually the West that came out better, in the long run, not least because of the third sphere, which spurred an international human rights movement throughout the Cold War.
This inspired the Solidarity movement in Poland, the Baltic Way in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia – movements that helped pave the way for the fall of the Iron Curtain and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
With the creation of the OSCE in the 1990s, the third area, that of human rights, was expanded to include issues such as the protection of national minorities, freedom of the press, and the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), which to this day sets standards for election observation missions.
In a letter to the 57 OSCE member states, which Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has seen, the Finnish ambassador to the OSCE, Vesa Hakkinen, invited them to the Helsinki celebration and wrote: “The Helsinki Final Act took a new approach to managing tensions and preventing conflict, establishing a set of principles and commitments that guide not only relations between states, but also within them. Fifty years later, the OSCE principles and commitments remain an essential part of the European security order.”
Whether this continues to be true is a topic that is increasingly being discussed.
Bridge builder?
The need for consensus in the organization has highlighted its shortcomings, especially in the face of a Russia that seems increasingly revanchist and on the rise, and which has tested the OSCE for several years.
The OSCE mission in Georgia was suspended in 2009, a year after Russia invaded the South Caucasus republic. Moscow's subsequent recognition of Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia further undermined the organization.
When Russia forcibly annexed Crimea in 2014 and invaded parts of eastern Ukraine later that year, Moscow initially allowed a limited monitoring mission from the OSCE, but the operation of such a mission was completely suspended not long after the launch of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in early 2022.
Three former employees of the monitoring mission have since been illegally imprisoned in Russia, with the OSCE making little progress in efforts to free them.
This has also pushed other countries to abandon some of the organization's key mechanisms.
The OSCE Minsk Group, created to find a peaceful solution between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, became redundant after Baku annexed the entire territory in 2023 and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev called for the group to be dissolved. As a result, the OSCE budget remains blocked, with Azerbaijan refusing approval until all Minsk-linked institutions are removed.
Despite this, there is no real discussion in Vienna about suspending Russia (or any other country, for that matter). Instead, several OSCE officials told Radio Free Europe that dialogue and “open channels of communication” among all participating states remain essential.
In preparation for the Helsinki meeting, the Finnish delegation to the OSCE sent an invitation to all countries to engage in “small group discussions” during the spring, to address issues such as how to hold each other accountable, whether there is a minimum level of trust necessary for the OSCE to function, and whether it can serve as a “bridge builder.”
In June, a new letter from the Finnish side – which REL has seen – was sent to summarize all discussions and it is clear that no major changes are expected.
“Anger at the consensus rule”
One of the conclusions was that “while desirable, trust is not a condition for dialogue.” Another conclusion, seemingly at odds with the first, was that “participants confirmed the continued validity and importance of OSCE principles and commitments, even – and especially – when they are being violated, most severely by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.”
Regarding accountability, there was even an admission that the OSCE “cannot enforce the implementation of its principles.”
The letter also states that many “have expressed anger at the consensus rule.” But it adds that “many feel that consensus is the essence of the OSCE and is an important guarantor of inclusive decision-making.”
Not surprisingly, the document concludes that “this is not the time for major reforms. However, most participants called for small, gradual changes to enable the OSCE to better perform its core functions.”
The future of the OSCE may rest on a “coalition of the willing” formed to avoid vetoes – as has happened in many other international institutions in recent years.
One of these steps was the OSCE Secretariat Support Programme for Ukraine (SPU) – a portfolio of off-budget projects. The idea emerged in late June 2022, when Russia blocked consensus on extending the OSCE Project Coordinator in Ukraine – an OSCE field operation that had been active since 1999.
Then there is the most frequent use of the OSCE mechanism for Moscow, which has been activated five times since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This mechanism was last activated to document alleged Russian crimes against captured soldiers and detained civilians.
By not requiring consensus for activation, the expert fact-finding missions and subsequent reports of this mechanism will be useful in various courts, especially in the recently established special tribunal for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.
Whether these forms of avoidance can keep the OSCE relevant will be discussed long after the events that will be organized in Helsinki for this anniversary are over./ REL (A2 Televizion)
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