Poland’s participation in the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) and then the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is active yet pragmatic. Poland perceives the OSCE as part of the European security architecture, yet soberly assesses the organisation’s capabilities, significantly shortened by the decisional deadlock and the unpunished violations of the OSCE’s principles by some of its participating states. While Poland is unable to alter the political landscape, it contributes to make the organisation work against all odds.
From the Beginning
Poland is a co-founder of the CSCE/OSCE. Warsaw has been a seat of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR, and its predecessor, the Office for Free Elections) since establishment thereof in the 1990s. and Polish Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk was the longest-serving Personal Representative of the Chairperson-in-Office on the conflict dealt with by the OSCE Minsk Conference (1997-2021), to mention but a few.
The country has twice held the chairpersonship of the organisation, in 1998 and 2022. Statistically, this places it among those that have held this position most often, on a par with 7 of the 57 participating states, such as Austria, Finland, Sweden, Switzerland. While there is no country that has held the chairpersonship more times, there is a large group of countries (30 out of 57) that have not held it at all. Politically, this sends a sign of trust of 57 participating states given that the OSCE Ministerial Council decides by consensus on the chairpersonship. And both statistically and politically there is no doubt that Poland is unlikely to receive another mandate to hold this position any time soon due to its strong opposition to Russia’s full-scale attack on Ukraine and its other responses thereto.
(Re)inventing Solutions
During its chairpersonship in 2022 – the year Russia launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine – Poland adopted a no-business-as-usual approach towards the aggressor, knowing that he would use it to put into question the chairpersonship’s role of the honest broker. One of the manifestations of Polish stance was the refusal to issue visas to Russian delegates for the Ministerial Council in Łódź in December 2022. Although, in order to preserve the organisation, which faced the risk of simultaneously lacking top 4 officers, chairpersonship for 2024 and a new budget due to Russian veto, this approach was altered by subsequent chairs – Macedonian in 2023 (which solved some of these problems) and Maltese in 2024 (selected at the turn of November and December 2023), it sent a clear signal condemning the aggressor’s actions. Moreover, the Polish chairpersonship put forward some new solutions that are still in use today.
One of these is the Warsaw Human Dimension Conference, which has been organised as a replacement for the Human Dimension Implementation Meetings, blocked by Russia. The event has been organised in the Polish capital by successive chairpersonships for four years now, with the support of the ODIHR. The Conference brings together hundreds of participants, including OSCE and state officials, activists and experts to discuss the human rights situation in participating countries, as well as the OSCE’s initiatives aimed at strengthening respect for human rights.
Another example of circumventing the Russian veto is the so-called SPU – OSCE Secretariat Extra-Budgetary Support Programme for Ukraine, launched on 1 November 2022 following the non-extension of the mandate of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, developed with the support of the chairpersonship. Poland is still involved in the project today, along with 35 other donors, including the EU and some non-OSCE states.
Final Remarks
The OSCE is not a panacea for all regional security issues, but it remains a component of the security architecture that Poland supports and uses in its foreign policy, while realistically assessing its potential impact. The September drone attack on its territory is a reason to activate the mechanisms provided for in the 2011 OSCE Vienna Document, but Poland is aware that the commitments made within the OSCE are not sufficient to convince the aggressor to provide explanations or stop escalating. When Warsaw advocates the continued existence of the OSCE, it is not to make it compete with the EU or NATO, in which Poland places its greatest hopes for multilateral cooperation. It recognises the value of the OSCE as a platform for dialogue from Vancouver to Vladivostok, and as the only organisation apart from the UN that connects it with countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus yet it does not have excessive expectations of this cooperation. Whenever Poland supports the repeated activation of the Moscow Mechanism to investigate human rights violations by Russia or Belarus, it is aware that this will not have a sudden effect on the regimes in question. However, it recognises that this will send a clear message to perpetrators and facilitate accountability in the long term. When Poland proposes or provides assistance to creative solutions that enable the OSCE to maintain its achievements, it takes into account that this may sometimes involve ensuring the continued operation of such solutions beyond the organisation’s formal structure.
Stefania Kolarz
EU Law and OSCE Senior Analyst
The Polish Institute of International Affairs
Poland
kolarz@pism.pl
