By Vladimir Socor
The OSCE's year-end ministerial conference on December 5-6 witnessed the unraveling
of the European Union's Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The unraveling
was so far-reaching that not even the usual façade of unity could be
preserved at this conference. Unity of purpose was, to be sure, maintained on
democracy issues, which the EU regards as a major component of its desired CFSP.
But, on the hard issues of conventional arms control and regional security in
its neighborhood, the EU and its major member countries spoke with divergent
voices or fell silent. If a lowest-common-denominator consensus was sought,
it clearly was not reached.
Britain, current holder of the EU's Presidency, was represented merely by a
sub-cabinet official with marginal foreign-policy responsibility, the State
Minister for Human Rights Ian Pearson. The low level of representation seems
inexplicable, considering the high level of this event and Britain's role to
speak on the EU's collective behalf.
In that capacity, Pearson called on Russia to fulfill its 1999 Istanbul Commitments
on troop withdrawal from Georgia and Moldova. The EU welcomes the start on the
withdrawal from Georgia this year, he said, but it "regret[s] the continuing
lack of progress on withdrawal from Moldova" and urges Russia to withdraw
its forces "as soon as possible." This latter qualifier is an unfortunate
carryover from the OSCE's 2003 Maastricht conference, allowing Moscow to determine
what is possible and when. It gives Moscow the opportunity to claim -- as it
does, at this conference included -- that the "necessary conditions are
not present" and troop withdrawal is "not possible" until the
Transnistria conflict is resolved on terms that suit Moscow and Tiraspol.
On the frozen conflicts generally, the Pearson-delivered EU statement merely
"urge[d] all parties involved to search for ways to bring an end these
conflicts." Such a formulation signaled that the EU has no policy on that
issue, much less a common policy to guide its regional representatives. Meanwhile,
only its representative for Moldova is involved in conflict-settlement negotiations,
and only as an observer; the EU's representative for the South Caucasus is not
mandated to deal with the conflicts there; and the French co-mediator in the
Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict represents France in a national capacity, not the
EU.
The Pearson-delivered EU statement omitted any mention of the linkage between
fulfillment of the Istanbul Commitments by Russia and ratification of the Treaty
on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) by the other state-parties. This conditionality
is the only significant incentive available to Euro-Atlantic allies and partners
for eliciting Russian fulfillment. Russia bristles at the mention of this linkage
by the United States and other countries. Some West European governments are
inclined to erode or elude that linkage, and they apparently influenced the
content of the EU British Presidency's statement.
At the same time, the statement took a firm line on Russian-proposed "reform"
of the OSCE. It ignored or deflected Moscow's demands to "reinforce"
the OSCE's role as a security organization, expand the Permanent Council's and
Secretary-General's functions (over which Russia wields the veto), "geographically
rebalance" OSCE pro-democracy activities westward (away from the post-Soviet
area), and increase Russian/CIS representation in field offices as well as election-monitoring
missions of the OSCE's Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).
The Presidency's statement may have reflected a commonly agreed wording, but
clearly not common national positions. When major EU countries and representatives
spoke in a national or institutional capacity, some of them either differed
from the EU's collective statement on key issues, or ignored such issues.
The EU's External Relations Commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner, urged the
conference, "Reform should reinforce the OSCE as a key promoter of comprehensive
security in Europe" and make a "stronger role of the Secretary-General."
Germany's Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier called for a
"better geographic balance" at the OSCE. Steinmeier's speech was singular
in that it pleaded throughout for retention of the consensus rule (at one point
terming that rule "the OSCE's elixir of life"). Such pleading could
be seen as preemptive defense against suggestions to weaken Russia's hold on
the OSCE by moving from the veto-based system to a consensus-minus-one system
or some other procedural ways around Russia's veto. Such suggestions have circulated
informally, though not at this conference, and never at the official level;
yet Germany's new minister hastened to shoot them down.
On the eve of the conference, Germany proposed a new paragraph calling for
"strengthening the CFE Treaty" (an oblique reference to ratification)
to be added to the year-end political declaration. The proposed text made no
mention of the Istanbul Commitments and was pointedly separated from the draft
declaration's paragraph that referenced Istanbul. As Russia had already vetoed
the latter paragraph, the German-proposed paragraph could only contribute to
severing the linkage between those two agreements. The GUAM countries (Georgia,
Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) among others resisted the proposal, and Steinmeier
restored the linkage in his speech to the conference. For his part, French Minister
of Foreign Affairs Philippe Douste-Blazy never mentioned Russian troops or Istanbul
Commitments in his speech and vaguely hoped for "equitable solutions"
to the frozen conflicts.
The most pessimistic omens for 2006 came from Austria and Belgium, the incoming
presiding countries of the EU and OSCE, respectively. Austrian Minister of Foreign
Affairs Ursula Plassnik "warmly welcome [d] a larger number of Russian
observers" to elections; spoke of a symmetric "dialogue by European
countries" with the United States and with Russia; and made no mention
of frozen conflicts and Russian troops in her speech. For his part, Belgian
Minister of Foreign Affairs Karel de Gucht seemed in his speech to consign those
issues to a peripheral place, both in relation to Europe and on the OSCE's 2006
agenda: "The frozen conflicts jeopardize, if not the European equilibrium,
at least the sub-regional equilibrium. … The solutions must involve an
agreement among the parties themselves as well as political will by the principal
actors." In sum, it is still up to Russia and its local "parties,"
according to this vision.
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