The OSCE without Russia – a Solution for Europe’s Security?

29 May 2015

A new soft security organization ‘OSCE BIS’ that excludes Russia should be established because Russia is “blocking and manipulating the existing global and Pan-European security organisations”, and making use of violence and aggression, argues Jan Piekło in his paper.

Jan Piekło suggests that Russia is using the OSCE to serve its own end and not to secure sovereignty, security, and democracy as it should. Hence, Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, the three Eastern Partnership countries that have signed the Association Agreements with the EU, do not have security and political guarantees anymore. With the ongoing war in Ukraine, it is the West’s credibility that is at stake. These Eastern partners therefore deserve from the West soft security guarantees.

A new initiative ‘OSCE BIS’ as described by Jan Piekło would provide these guarantees, based on the Helsinki Final Act (basis of the current OSCE) and on democratic criteria. Russia would be excluded from this organization unless it meets the democratic criteria and invalidates the annexation of Ukrainian and Georgian territories. He argues that Russia would then feel marginalized and reduced to a “rogue state”, which they definitely do not want, and this would persuade them to negotiate.

Jan Piekło strongly recommends that this new intergovernmental organization should have a strong civil society involvement, based on the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, which would have the right to membership.

Discussion paper “OSCE ‘BIS’: a New European Security Initiative’’