IV OSCE
| Author | Arie Bloed |
| Published date | 01 June 1995 |
| Date | 01 June 1995 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/016934419501300208 |
| Subject Matter | Part B: Human Rights News |
Human Rights News
action strategies to increase the effectiveness of the Commission's support programmes,
and for a more coherent and comprehensive approach towards strengthening the rule of
law and civil society. The discussion continues.
IV OSCE
Arie Bioed
A. CSCE/OSCE Summit Meeting in Budapest ended in 'Failure'!
The Summit Meeting of the OSCE in Budapest on 5 and 6 December 1994 ended in what
is generally considered to be a failure. In spite of the fact that the Summit adopted an
extensive concluding document, all public attention went to the two major issues of
disagreement among the heads of State and/or Government of the52 participating States:
the issue of the possible admittance of some Central European States to NATO and the
dramatic developments in the civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Although both issues resulted in major clashes among the participating States and
determined the character of the summit meeting to a high extent, as a matter of fact they
had hardly anything to do with the OSCE as such. Due to a coincidence in time,
however, these issues overshadowed the OSCE Summit. Theunfortunate result is that the
general public again got an impression of OSCEas an ineffective talk-show organization.
It
also resulted in minimal attention (if any) for the results of the meeting which were
positive albeit not very impressive.
The Budapest Summit was put under strains, in particular, as a consequence of the
recent change in American policy in relation to the extension of NATO. The US
Government unexpectedly decided to push the issue of NATO's extension eastward and
hoped to be able to counter Russian fears for an eastward extension of the former enemy-
alliance by proposing to upgrade the OSCE. At the same time, the American President
- who at first did not plan to attend the Budapest Summit himself - decided to travel to
Budapest to indicate that the American Government indeed attaches importance to the
OSCE. However, the Russians did not accept the deal and heavily criticized NATO
intentions to include countries like Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
This American policy was afterwards also criticized by leading political personalities such
as the President
of
the EU Commission, Jacques Delors.
In spite of all disagreements, the Summit adopted a lengthy concluding document with
the challenging title 'Towards a Genuine Partnership in a New Era'. This was the result
of two months of negotiations at the OSCE Budapest Review Conference which started
in the beginning of October 1994. The contents of the concluding document is certainly
less impressive than its title pretends. As a matter of fact, the Budapest Document does
not introduce revolutionary changes. The most striking elements were even deleted at the
very last moment, such as the 'OSCE first principle' which would have given the OSCE
a certain priority in dealing with regional conflicts which then, if need be, could be
referred by the OSCE to the UN Security Council on the basis of consensus-minus-
one/two/three." This resulted in the fact that the whole chapter on relations between the
As of 1 January 1995, the CSCE has officially been renamed into Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). For more details, seebelow.
It was planned to enable the OSCE to refer disputes to the UN Security Council, if need be without the
consent of the parties to the dispute.
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