On August 12, the Valdai Discussion Club hosted an online discussion dedicated to the 45th anniversary of the CSCE Helsinki Final Act (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe), titled “World Peace Without the OSCE 45 years Ago. Was It Possible?”
Russia’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE Alexander Lukashevich called the signing of the CSCE Final Act a triumph of Soviet diplomacy, which created a way for defining the vector of Europe’s development through collective decisions. Alas, the efforts of the United States, which perceived the Helsinki process as a threat to NATO and the American presence in Europe, thwarted this cooperation. Russian initiatives to transform the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe into a full-fledged international organisation and develop inter-institutional cooperation in the field of common security for all, in essence, remained on paper. “The collective West does not see the OSCE at all, or perceives it as a threat to its own Euro-Atlantic mechanisms, which should ensure security in Europe,” Lukashevich said. So, now it’s “a bittersweet anniversary”, and if the current trends continue, the OSCE will “face an unenviable fate”, he stressed.
Rein Müllerson, Professor Emeritus at Tallinn University, named a number of serious OSCE achievements, but agreed with Lukashevich that the hopes once pinned on the Helsinki process – the hopes for a new world order where the rule of law would precede politics – haven’t been fulfilled due to the disturbed balance of power in international relations. Power corrupts – and the United States developed certain permissiveness, and international law could not prevent this, since it wasn’t back by sufficient power, he explained, adding that the current atmosphere also “does not inspire much hope”: the forces that dominated the unipolar world are acting against the emerging multipolar world, which is not conducive to ideas of cooperation.
Alexander Rahr, The Research Director of the German-Russian Forum, called the Helsinki Act a recreation of the Yalta world system – with the infusion of liberal values, but mutually beneficial, “without winners and losers”. In his opinion, this was the culmination of the European policy of “change through trade”. “We were approaching a common foundation for legitimate soft security in Europe,” he said. Nevertheless, the Cold War then resumed with renewed vigour, and a new detente in 1985-1990 led to the predominance of the West. As a result, an attempt was made to create a new system of European security, based solely on Western interests and values. Now the OSCE is in fact dysfunctional and serves mainly as an instrument for controlling democratic processes in countries seeking to become part of the West. However, the expert noted that he “would not like it to simply disappear”. Against the background of the changing international environment, the OSCE can become the foundation for creating a new security architecture for the whole of Europe, but this, among other things, will require a partnership with the Eurasian Union and the revival of the concept of “Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok”.
Answering the question posed by the moderator about whether Russia should try to be part of the European balance of power or whether this task – and the OSCE with it – has become a thing of the past, Igor Istomin, Associate Professor at the Department of Applied International Analysis of MGIMO University, said that Russia consistently pursues a politics of building an inclusive non-aligned security architecture, within which it will be on an equal footing with its Western partners. The signing of the CSCE Final Act was the moment when we moved furthest in this direction, he said. For the first time, the vision of Moscow was embodied in international documents and the launch of a regular negotiating platform. However, this moment had more of a symbolic meaning – the regional architecture still consisted of two rival blocs and the confrontation persisted. The signing itself was not enough to resolve the structural problems. As for detente, it was launched not by the Helsinki Act, which was adopted at its end, but by the processes taking place outside Europe. Now security and economic integration with Europe, according to Istomin, is neither the only option, nor the most promising one for Russia from the point of view of the development of constructive relations, since the problem of bloc rivalry has not yet been overcome. Nevertheless, it cannot be said that Europe has ceased to matter for Russia. The European Union is still important for the country, although it should be understood that many features of the European system, inconvenient for it, are here to stay, the analyst stressed.
