Growing Pains at the OSCE: The Rise and Fall of Russia's Pan-European Expectations

After the dissolution of the USSR, the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) sought to contribute to the transformation of Russia into a democratic state abiding by the rule of law and by international law. The Yeltsin administration concurred and adopted a generally cooperative posture within the CSCE. However, when Moscow suggested (as a counter-move against NATO's enlargement projects) the elaboration of a legal pan-European security system, the CSCE—now rebaptised OSCE—responded by means of the Istanbul Charter for European Security (1999), an empty text by Russian standards. Feeling that its interests were no longer served, the Putin administration warned that without drastic reforms the Organisation would be ‘doomed to extinction’. In order to defuse the crisis, the OSCE adopted a number of reform measures. Overall, however, the reform process brought very little to a Russia whose obsession with equality of status is now better addressed through bilateral institutional channels with NATO and the EU. In the present circumstances, the fate of the OSCE depends on the political value that the West attaches to this organisation, as well as Russia's wisdom not to break the single European security organisation where its place and role are fully legitimate.