Is a Russian veto on leadership about to provoke the downfall of the OSCE?
Is a Russian veto on leadership about to provoke the downfall of the OSCE?
Stefan Wolff & Cornelius Friesendorf
The survival of the world’s largest regional security organisation—the 57-member Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)—is under threat from Russian ambitions to upend the existing international order. Whether, and how, the OSCE will continue is likely to be decided on 30 November and 1 December, when OSCE Foreign Ministers convene in Skopje, under the current Chairpersonship of North Macedonia, for their annual Ministerial Council.
Some might argue that not much would be lost if the OSCE were to perish in Russia’s war on multilateralism. However, this misjudges the important role the OSCE has played in the past, setting standards on issues from election observation to minority rights and the fight against human trafficking. Nor would the OSCE be without use in the future: the organisation’s arsenal of confidence and security-building measures remains relevant for reducing the risk of an unwanted escalation of the war in Ukraine. In the event of a ceasefire or peace agreement, the need for a civilian peacekeeping mission could conceivably be met by the OSCE. Other protracted conflicts in Moldova, the South Caucasus and Central Asia, too, require careful management in the shadow of the war against Ukraine.
None of this, however, will be relevant if the OSCE is left without leaders, and Russia has already vetoed the only current candidate for the 2024 Chair, Estonia. At the top of the agenda at the Skopje Ministerial Council will therefore be the question of which country should take over the chairpersonship in 2024. If the participating States fail to agree on a Chair for next year, the consequences will not be insignificant. More than any other international organisation, the OSCE relies on its Chair, to broker consensus, set priorities, lead meetings and fill key posts. Without one there is a danger that it will become rudderless and ineffectual.
However, a Russian veto is not inevitable. The Kremlin has long viewed the OSCE as a threatening Western instrument for democratising post-Soviet states. Yet, Moscow also considers the OSCE as a forum for its own propaganda and for gathering information on Ukraine’s Western supporters. Threatening and using vetoes is also a useful tool for the Kremlin to retain some influence in the European security architecture.
For now, a showdown in Skopje is likely because Estonia has declined to withdraw its candidacy. With the European Union (EU) supporting this position, an earlier offer by Austria to step in had no chance of being taken up. Discussions that are apparently under way with Malta to be a potential alternative will face the same hurdle. At a meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council on 26 September, Russia showed only limited willingness to compromise. According to Alexander Lukashevich, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE, Russia is open to alternative candidates, as long as they are not members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This means that there is at least the potential for Austria’s candidacy to be revived or Malta’s be considered as a last-minute solution at the Ministerial Council meeting in December.
Any such eleventh-hour deal will likely depend on whether the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, is able to attend the meeting in Skopje. An added complication is whether Russian government representatives like Lavrov, who are subject to Western sanctions, will be granted entry permits and overflight rights to participate in person. Thus, supporters of the OSCE also have a choice to make: do they stick to lofty principles, or do they swallow a pragmatic compromise to enable the survival of the OSCE?
One might argue that the organisation will endure somehow even if this issue of next year’s chair is not resolved. After all, the OSCE has muddled through since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion into Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Yet, such optimism is ill-advised. Should there be no agreement by the end of the year, North Macedonia, with the support of NATO and EU members among the participating States, might declare that it will continue in the role out of a sense of responsibility to the OSCE. The aim would be to keep the OSCE running until Finland takes over the Chairpersonship in 2025, the year of the 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE), the predecessor of the OSCE.
In such a scenario, Russia would likely refuse to recognise North Macedonia as Chair and try to persuade other participating States not to do so either. The Kremlin could even withdraw from the OSCE and pressure others to follow suit, thus effectively spelling the end of the organisation as an inclusive forum for east-west security dialogue.
Hence, the search for an alternative candidate has to remain a priority and appears to be high on the agenda of the current Chair, Bujar Osmani, the Foreign Minister of North Macedonia. Malta, whose potential candidacy was revealed by Security and Human Rights Monitor (SHRM), has yet however to officially declare its intentions and is unlikely to do so unless there is an agreement that Estonia will withdraw its bid, thus clearing the way for EU support. Similarly, some indication from Russia that it would at least not veto a Maltese Chair for 2024 will likely be necessary for Malta to step up officially.
These complications and the fact that we are now less than four weeks away from the Ministerial Council meeting brings us back to Austria as an alternative. Vienna as the host of the OSCE’s headquarters could take over certain Chair functions on a provisional basis, likely in consultation with North Macedonia and Finland, the properly elected Chairs of 2023 and 2025. This would not require a formal, and thus vetoable, decision. The pro-Ukrainian alliance would be able to argue that it had not bowed to the threatened Russian veto. And given Austria is a non-NATO member, it would fulfil one of Russia’s conditions for alternative candidates.
Any such compromise will require careful preparation, including dialogue via backchannels between key western capitals and Moscow. Moreover, any compromise will also need to be palatable to Ukraine, which, like every OSCE participating State, also has the power to veto decisions. In light of the ever more visible signs of a fraying western consensus on support for Kyiv, the key players in Washington, Brussels, London, Paris, and Berlin may decide that preserving the pro-Ukrainian coalition is more important than the OSCE. While this is not an either-or choice, it remains unclear whether supporters of the OSCE east and west of Vienna can muster the political will to defend the organisation against Russia’s destructiveness.
This was also published by the Foreign Policy Centre.
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