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Ukraine’s 2013 chairmanship of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) presents Kyiv with a major opportunity to advance an agenda that benefits the entire Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security community. Ukraine must make the most of this unparalleled opportunity and demonstrate its ability to lead and inspire others to achieve real progress on difficult problems.

Key Themes

• Ukraine will face unique challenges during its chairmanship stemming from its domestic politics, strained relations with some OSCE-participating states, and persistent negative perceptions of its record on citizens’ rights.


• Putting forward a complacent, status quo agenda or hindering the work of OSCE institutions or missions in any area will cede the spotlight to Ukraine’s critics at home and abroad.


• Ukraine will face predictably unpredictable crises, such as heightened tension between Moldova and the separatist region of Transnistria, expanded fighting in the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, and economic and political instability in Belarus.


• Kyiv should focus its agenda on a small handful of opportunities in each of the OSCE’s security dimensions—politico-military, economic, and human security—that directly reinforce the vision of a Euro-Atlantic security community.


• Success will require Ukraine to focus on building trust among OSCE participating states.


• Ukraine must leverage the resources of its own top diplomats and respected international experts while coordinating closely with both outgoing and incoming OSCE chairs.

Recommendations for the Ukrainian Chairmanship

Prioritize Transnistria conflict resolution. Ukraine is a guarantor of the 5+2 process that seeks a negotiated settlement to the conflict between Moldova and Transnistria as well as Moldova’s largest neighbor. Kyiv is thus in a unique position to lobby all the stakeholders to embrace a common strategic framework. Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych should call upon counterparts from other OSCE-participating states to lend their support.

Balance energy security and environmental impacts. Ukraine should put forward an energy security initiative that balances the present urgent need for an early-warning mechanism for energy issues under the OSCE umbrella with the linked challenges of energy efficiency and environmental protection. Kyiv should emphasize the long-term security implications of the region’s energy practices, including their impact on the environment and human development.

Begin a process of historical reconciliation. Tensions over historical memory drive conflicts throughout the OSCE. Kyiv should spearhead an OSCE-wide historical reconciliation initiative that begins with a clear demonstration that it supports the process within Ukraine as well as with its neighbors, drawing on the successful experience of other OSCE participating states.

Introduction

After almost three years of discussion and debate, delegates from 35 states, representing both sides of the Cold War divide and three continents, reached agreement in the summer of 1975 on a set of basic principles meant to enhance security in Europe and the surrounding neighborhood. Their accomplishment, known as the Helsinki Final Act, remains the political foundation for cooperation on security among states of the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian regions. Today, the successor to the Helsinki conference is the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), with 57 participating states. In 2013, Ukraine will take over the organization’s chairmanship.

Carrying on the legacy of the Helsinki Final Act, the OSCE embodies a set of basic security principles grouped in three general “dimensions.” The first, politico-military security, guarantees the “sovereign equality” and “territorial integrity” of participating states while promoting the “peaceful settlement of disputes.” The second dimension promotes cooperation in the fields of economics, science and technology, and the environment on the basis of common projects and standards intended to reduce the likelihood of disputes driven by economic factors. The third and final dimension, human security, recognizes a set of basic rights to be enjoyed by citizens of regional states, including the right to travel, maintain family contacts, access education in native languages, freely access and disseminate information, and conduct cultural and commercial exchanges.

The OSCE is, in essence, a platform for discussing major challenges of regional security and cooperation and resolving them within a framework of agreed principles.

These principles are alive and well in the OSCE today. The organization itself has a limited executive staff attached to the Vienna-based secretariat plus three institutions: the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) in Warsaw, the Office of the Representative on Freedom of the Media in Vienna, and the Office of the High Commissioner on National Minorities in The Hague—all with a relatively high degree of flexibility and autonomy. (See appendix 1 for a complete OSCE organizational chart.) None of these institutions, though, is intended to substitute for the core function of the OSCE itself. While each participating state provides an ambassador to the OSCE to sit on the body’s permanent council, key decisions are always made by participating states’ governments and reconciled through negotiation at the highest levels. Thus the OSCE is, in essence, a platform for discussing major challenges of regional security and cooperation and resolving them within a framework of agreed upon principles.

As a political agreement, the Helsinki Final Act imposed no formal, legally binding commitments. Likewise, the OSCE today has neither “legal personality” as an international actor nor any legal authority to permit or prohibit conduct by its participating states. Yet it is a serious mistake to dismiss the OSCE as weak or irrelevant.

To the contrary, the OSCE is the only body that equally represents all 57 states of the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian region and that is expressly charged with a mandate to deal with each dimension of the region’s shared security—dimensions that, as time and technology advance, are becoming ever more interlinked. Moreover, the OSCE can hardly be judged strong or weak on its own account. It represents the collective political will of participating states under the leadership of the chair. Thus, to label the OSCE weak is to criticize the engagement of the participating states or the diplomatic and leadership ability of the chair. The OSCE is no more and no less than a mirror of the overall state of relations among its participating states.

With skillful diplomacy and a set of ambitious but clearly defined and realistic goals, the Ukrainian chair can help deliver significant progress on the security problems that plague not only Ukraine but also the OSCE as a whole.

The silver lining in this situation is that the OSCE is inherently flexible and potentially as powerful as the collective determination of the region’s strongest actors. The OSCE chairmanship thus offers Ukraine a tremendous opportunity. Ukraine may be able to benefit from the elevated profile it will be afforded and take advantage of this prestigious position to conduct Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian diplomacy at the highest level. With skillful diplomacy and a set of ambitious but clearly defined and realistic goals, the Ukrainian chair can help deliver significant progress on the security problems that plague not only Ukraine but also the OSCE as a whole. If Ukraine fails to set high ambitions and invest all of its political capital in the 2013 chairmanship, then the year is certain to be worse than wasted, for both Ukraine and the OSCE. The dominant political tone will be critical of Ukraine, which will provoke time-consuming and purposeless conflict between the chairmanship and participating states, and the OSCE itself may be severely weakened.

What Ukraine Has to Gain

At a minimum, Ukraine’s chairmanship will bring significant international attention to Kyiv’s priorities and afford Ukraine the opportunity to be seen as a leader within the Euro-Atlantic/Eurasian community. And observers will undoubtedly measure Ukraine’s chairmanship against the successes and failures of the recent past. It should be Kyiv’s goal not only to compare favorably to past experiences but also to be a major initiator of activity and momentum instead of merely a passive steward of the Helsinki principles.

The OSCE chairmanship has served as an important platform for other post-Communist European countries to demonstrate the maturity of their diplomatic capabilities, showcase the commitment of their political leaders to the Helsinki principles, and earn the respect of other OSCE participating states by exercising leadership on key regional security issues. In the immediate aftermath of the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe, Czechoslovakia in 1992 and Hungary in 1995 used the OSCE chairmanship to demonstrate their commitment to full membership in the family of European and Euro-Atlantic states and their ambition to respect and implement the Helsinki principles (even though those principles had been originally negotiated with the participation of Czechoslovakia’s and Hungary’s discredited Communist governments). Likewise, the 1998 and 2001 chairmanships of Poland and Romania, respectively, were important tests of these countries’ transitions into responsible stakeholders capable of fully appreciating and exercising the duties of membership in other multilateral organizations, especially the European Union (EU). (See appendix 2 for an overview of past chairmanships.)

Of course, not all precedents have been positive. Kazakhstan lobbied hard to take on the OSCE chairmanship in 2010, and its turn at the helm was widely seen as a vital opportunity for a post-Soviet nation to demonstrate thorough and impartial backing for the Helsinki principles, despite its own domestic challenges related to those very principles.

Yet while Kazakhstan initially trumpeted its commitment to observing the “basic principles of the open participation of non-governmental organizations in the OSCE activities” and pledged to uphold the strength and independence of the OSCE’s own rights-monitoring body, ODIHR, in 2011 Astana found itself opposing the work of precisely those groups it had sworn to protect. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights watchdogs were outraged when Kazakhstan’s government brutally repressed a series of protests in the town of Zhanaozen. And while the Kazakhs worked hard to organize a successful summit in December 2010, the legacy of Kazakhstan’s chairmanship is clouded by its subsequent attacks on the OSCE. After OSCE election monitors reported violations in recent Kazakh elections, for example, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev criticized the organization, calling it a ship that is “lurching to one side.”¹

Still, in many respects, the Kazakh chairmanship was a success. Kazakhstan certainly gained a higher profile on matters of Euro-Atlantic/Eurasian security as a result of its active and dynamic OSCE chairmanship, and the considerable resources it devoted to the Astana summit, marking thirty-five years since the Helsinki Final Act. The Astana summit was the first OSCE summit in eleven years in which participants debated—though ultimately rejected—an ambitious declaration aiming to increase the OSCE’s ability to tackle threats to its member states. And it succeeded especially with regard to crisis management, one of the major tests of diplomacy and leadership.

The OSCE may be called upon to respond to security crises in the Euro-Atlantic region at any time, which means that the chair must always be prepared for the unexpected. This was certainly the case during the spring of 2010, when political crisis and ethnic violence gripped Kyrgyzstan. Protests against the government of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev were followed by violent clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan between the Kyrgyz and Uzbek ethnic groups. Kazakhstan had little choice but to respond, given its dual obligations as a large neighboring state and OSCE chair. President Nazarbayev worked with his U.S. and Russian counterparts to facilitate the departure of Bakiyev and engage with the interim national government led by Roza Otunbayeva. Kazakh parliamentarian Zhanybek Karibzhanov was dispatched as OSCE special envoy to Bishkek to provide support for the transition and help monitor the process of fully halting hostilities.²

Lithuania’s 2011 OSCE chairmanship offers another example of crisis management. In December 2010, barely a week before Lithuania was scheduled to take over the chairmanship, OSCE and other international election observers condemned a manipulated presidential contest in Lithuania’s neighbor Belarus. Belarusian security services beat and arrested anti-regime demonstrators who had gathered in the main square of Minsk on election night, December 19. The situation grew worse in subsequent months. Growing public protest was met by a harsh state response, including further beatings, arrests, and widespread repressive measures against opposition politicians, their supporters, and human rights activists from across the Belarusian political landscape. By the summer, the regime had become so paranoid that clapping hands, ringing cellphones, or merely standing together in a group in a public place was deemed an offense against state security.³

Lithuania was put in a difficult position. It has close economic ties to Belarus and a long-standing policy of engagement with the Belarusian people, but had to criticize the excesses of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenka’s regime. In its capacity as OSCE chair, Lithuania protested Lukashenka’s closure of the OSCE representative office in Minsk. It did not, however, join the fourteen participating states that supported invoking the OSCE Moscow mechanism, which authorized an independent fact-finding mission to report and document repressions stemming from the election-night protests.⁴

Ukraine will doubtless face its own share of predictably unpredictable crises in its immediate neighborhood, if not farther afield. The conflict between neighboring Moldova and the Transnistria region, which seeks independence from Moldova, has cooled substantially since January, when a young Moldovan man was killed by Russian peacekeepers. But there is always the possibility of renewed tension over the perpetual sore points of constraints on free movement, language, education, and other basic rights denied to some citizens in the region. If the conflict did ratchet up, Ukraine would face dual responsibilities as both OSCE chair and a security guarantor in the OSCE-mediated 5+2 process, in which Transnistria, Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, and the OSCE, plus the United States and the EU as external observers, are seeking a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

The scenarios leading to a potential political or security crisis in Belarus are myriad. It continues down the dangerous path of economic uncertainty mixed with political repression. Its difficulties have been exacerbated by the lingering impacts of the recent global financial crisis, Russia’s reluctance to continue subsidizing an unreliable client state, and the broader European economic slowdown. If a crisis broke out, Ukraine would be forced to respond, both because of the two countries’ physical proximity and cross-border economic, environmental, and family ties and because Ukraine and other OSCE participating states, such as Lithuania, Russia, and Poland, would likely have to absorb increased numbers of Belarusian emigrants.

The simmering conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the status of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory is, likewise, a perennial sore spot on Europe’s southeastern periphery that could prove a thorn in Ukraine’s side. Fatal violence has become the norm, the Armenian and Azerbaijani camps are increasingly heavily armed, and provocative statements or nationalist gestures intended for domestic political consumption can easily inflame tensions into outright international conflict. Renewed fighting also has the potential to entangle regional powers such as Russia and Turkey.⁵

Kyiv has the opportunity to prove itself up to the task of Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian leadership in trying times.

While the OSCE will not bear sole or even primary responsibility for managing these potential crises, participating states will look to Ukraine for careful and balanced leadership, with appropriately swift action when needed. Broader regional challenges, such as the impacts of Europe’s ongoing debt crisis or implications of Russia’s proposed Eurasian Economic Union, as well as the ebb and flow of domestic politics throughout the region, will all create a difficult backdrop for Ukraine’s chairmanship. Yet in all of this, Kyiv has the opportunity to prove itself up to the task of Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian leadership in trying times.

Ukraine’s Unique Challenges

In its OSCE chairmanship, Ukraine will face a set of unique challenges deriving from the country’s domestic politics, strained relations with some OSCE participating states, and persistent negative perceptions of Ukraine’s own record on commitments to the Helsinki principles. By far the most urgent and obvious challenge will be the problem of credibility on matters related to the human dimension.

Ukraine has consistently reaffirmed its intention to implement human-dimension commitments, as it did by signing onto the 2010 Astana summit declaration.⁶

Convinced that the inherent dignity of the individual is at the core of comprehensive security,” summit participants declared, “we reiterate that human rights and fundamental freedoms are inalienable, and that their protection and promotion is our first responsibility. . . . We value the important role played by civil society and free media in helping us to ensure full respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms, democracy, including free and fair elections, and the rule of law.

Likewise, in the run-up to Ukraine’s chairmanship, then Foreign Minister Kostyantyn Gryshchenko emphasized that promoting the “implementation of the existing commitments in the human dimension will be at the top of the Ukrainian Chairmanship’s agenda.”⁷  Failure to apply these same standards to Ukraine’s own domestic situation would be seen by other participating states as blatantly hypocritical.

Yet a large number of criticisms in precisely this domain have already been leveled against Ukraine, not only from domestic political opposition groups but also from high-profile international actors and leaders of other OSCE participating states. The U.S. Senate recently passed a resolution condemning the prosecution and continuing incarceration of former prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko and her political allies.⁸  Various European leaders, including OSCE Parliamentary Assembly members, have made a special point of visiting Tymoshenko in prison and lobbying for her release.⁹  Her incarceration has become one of the main obstacles in Ukraine’s relations with the EU, stalling Ukraine’s hitherto successful bid for a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with Brussels. Awkwardly, some European leaders are even reluctant to be photographed with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych and to attend events in Ukraine, such as the EURO 2012 soccer championship.¹⁰

The Ukrainian parliamentary election in October 2012 also posed a significant challenge to Kyiv’s credibility on human-dimension issues. International observers, including ODIHR and the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, lambasted the “abuse of administrative resources, lack of transparency of campaign and party financing, and lack of balanced media coverage” during the election.¹¹  The United States has consistently emphasized the need for Ukraine to uphold its post-2004 record of free and fair elections, and while reaffirming their commitment to engage with Ukraine, U.S. officials nonetheless registered deep disappointment with the recent election process.¹²

Ukraine’s unique challenges as OSCE chair are not limited to the human dimension. In terms of politico-military security, Ukraine is in the unusual and potentially uncomfortable position of being the largest non-bloc country in the Euro-Atlantic/Eurasian space. As neither a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) nor a Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) member, Ukraine often stands alone in contending with its own major security challenges, such as tense relations with Russia, its largest neighbor, or instability in the wider Black Sea region.¹³

While this unusual perspective on Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security may be of great value for the advancement of a more inclusive understanding of the regional security community, Ukraine’s chairmanship may also suffer pointed criticism from neighbors engaged in ongoing security rivalries. Ukraine would not, of course, be the first OSCE participating state to be weighed down by its own unresolved conflicts during its chairmanship. Greece, which held the chairmanship in 2009, and Spain, in 2007, both maintained ongoing territorial disputes with other OSCE participating states—between Greece and Turkey over northern Cyprus, and between Spain and the United Kingdom over Gibraltar. Moreover, Ukraine and Russia are engaged in ongoing disputes over pipeline routes, land and maritime borders, and resource rights, though they have made a positive start to normalizing their security relations by outlining a compromise resolution in their dispute over territory around the Kerch strait.¹⁴

Finally, in the economic and environmental dimension, Ukraine’s strained political relations with Moscow could spill over into its OSCE chairmanship. Ukraine’s future economic stability and continued growth prospects depend on finding alternatives to imported natural gas from Russia, which Ukraine is forced to buy at higher than market prices. Yet Russia depends on the ability to sell natural gas to Central and Western Europe, using transit pipelines that run through Ukraine. Although Russia may eventually complete a transit pipeline to Europe dubbed South Stream, circumventing Ukraine via the Black Sea, in the meantime, Moscow and Kyiv are deadlocked and there is a very real risk of another 2009-style “gas war,” especially during the cold winter months that will bookend the Ukrainian chairmanship.

The problem of weak and inconsistent property-rights protection in Ukraine has the potential to substantially undermine the public relations benefits of Ukraine’s chairmanship for potential investors and trade partners in the Euro- Atlantic and Eurasian neighborhood.

Moreover, it may be difficult for Ukraine to promote best practices in trade and economic development for the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian region when its own deeply flawed domestic property-rights regime, compromised judicial system, and widespread corrupt practices have resulted in years of predatory corporate raiding, including victimizing foreign investors.¹⁵  The problem of weak and inconsistent property-rights protection in Ukraine has the potential to substantially undermine the public relations benefits of Ukraine’s chairmanship for potential investors and trade partners in the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian neighborhood.

Balancing lofty commitments and aspirations with disappointing realities will be a recurring theme for the Ukrainian chairmanship in 2013. For each of the advantages and opportunities Ukraine may enjoy as OSCE chair, it will encounter difficulties due to well-known and long-standing shortcomings in Ukraine’s own domestic politics, institutional development, and foreign relations. Rather than interpreting criticism from other participating states as attempts to delegitimize Ukraine’s OSCE chairmanship, Kyiv should take advantage of the opportunity to demonstrate real leadership and progress.

Marshaling the Capacity to Succeed

Ukraine’s success or failure in the chairmanship will depend to a large degree on the tools, traits, and ambitions it brings to the job. On the most fundamental level, Ukraine must devote and deploy adequate institutional resources to manage the complex work of coordinating among its own political leadership, the OSCE secretariat and missions, and participating states. But it will not be enough for Ukraine to simply avoid conflicts or challenges—it must instead anticipate these difficulties and marshal serious national resources under an ambitious and compelling vision of Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security.

Ukraine’s institutional resources as chair must first and foremost be focused on the OSCE Chairmanship Task Force, an organization formed in the capital city of whichever country holds the OSCE chairmanship to support and coordinate the chair’s activities. The task force should be headed by a respected senior diplomat, endowed with its own experts covering each of the OSCE’s three dimensions, and capable of addressing the chair’s major initiatives. In Ukraine’s case, it is essential to appoint a strong task force in Kyiv with direct and open access to the foreign minister, who in turn should enjoy privileged access to the president. The minister himself must also be prepared to spend considerable time on chairmanship responsibilities.

In the case of Ireland’s 2012 chairmanship, this was difficult because the foreign minister also served as deputy prime minister, with heavy political demands and responsibility for budgetary issues.¹⁶  Ukrainian Foreign Minister Leonid Kozhara should be prepared to devote up to half of his schedule to the OSCE and related matters, planning visits to each of the seventeen OSCE mission areas and consulting on OSCE issues with leaders in other participating states. Time demands will be particularly acute in the run-up to the year-end ministerial meeting, but throughout the year it will be a major challenge to react quickly as crises inevitably arise in various areas of OSCE responsibility. If the chair is seen to be slowing or inhibiting the work of OSCE missions or the secretariat, it will damage both the organization and Ukraine’s credibility as chair.¹⁷

Ukraine, like past chairs, should designate liaison personnel in each of its major embassies in OSCE participating states, particularly in Washington, Brussels, and Moscow, as well as in Warsaw and The Hague, where OSCE institutions are located. Kyiv will also have the opportunity to appoint or reappoint special representatives on an array of issues. This is a chance for Ukraine to not only demonstrate its interest in areas such as gender equality, cybersecurity, or human trafficking but also enhance its own credibility by picking highly skilled individual experts who adhere to the highest professional standards and who, to the extent possible, represent a diversity of national and regional origins. By far the highest priority for Ukraine’s special representatives should be effectiveness. On urgent issues for Ukraine, such as the Transnistria conflict, it will be critical to designate a top-notch special representative who is able to garner respect from all parties and then endow him or her with sufficient resources.

While Ukraine must take full responsibility for the success or failure of its chairmanship year, it is not alone in developing and implementing a productive agenda. Indeed, continuity with previous and upcoming chairmanships is institutionalized within the OSCE in the form of the so-called troika. Under this construct, the current chair is assisted by the previous and succeeding chairs. In 2013, Ukraine should coordinate closely with its troika partners, Ireland and Switzerland, each of which can offer something of unique value. As outgoing chair, Ireland will have up-to-date insights on the state of OSCE institutions and initiatives as well as fresh experience convening the December 2012 ministerial meeting in Dublin. The outgoing chair’s major initiatives could offer a core of continuity for Ukraine’s 2013 agenda.

Coordinating with incoming 2014 chair Switzerland will be especially important, since it will help ensure followthrough and continuity for Ukraine’s initiatives. The Swiss have also begun to plan for their chairmanship well in advance and may be prepared to offer resources in support of Ukraine’s agenda in 2013 that can complement Ukraine’s own investments. Moreover, like Ukraine, Switzerland is neither an EU nor a NATO member, obviating the need for Switzerland to clear its activities with either alliance and underscoring its credibility as an honest broker. Serbia, which will hold the chairmanship in 2015, is likewise a non-bloc state and may find special resonance with Ukraine and Switzerland as all three look ahead to the OSCE’s 2015 Helsinki + 40 summit, which will mark the fortieth anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act. That summit is expected to attract significant international attention as participating states seek consensus on a major package of substantive deliverables.

In the nearer future, it goes almost without saying that the December 2013 ministerial meeting in Kyiv should be smooth and businesslike, setting a positive precedent for the years ahead. It is first and foremost a political event, but Ukraine’s technical capabilities and infrastructure will also be under scrutiny. Whether or not Kyiv can shepherd through adoption of significant consensus documents, the summit as a whole will benefit Ukraine’s international standing and its capabilities to build on the largely successful experience of hosting the EURO 2012 soccer championships.

Recent chairmanships offer useful examples of how to set a yearlong agenda culminating in the December ministerial. Lithuania’s 2011 chairmanship agenda, following the high-profile and ambitious Kazakh chairmanship in 2010, might be characterized as a shotgun-blast approach. The Lithuanians identified dozens of major goals, soliciting and implementing recommendations from a wide range of participating states. The