Ireland’s assumption of of the OSCE chair is welcomed, the group’s head believes
IRELAND WILL be viewed as an “honest broker” with valuable experience in conflict resolution and peacekeeping when it assumes the chairmanship of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) next year, the head of the body has said during a visit to Dublin.
OSCE secretary general Lamberto Zannier praised Ireland’s peacekeeping record and said the State could draw on the lessons of the Northern Ireland peace process to bring “added value” to its term as chair.
"The OSCE is an organisation that promotes peace and stability so this is very much in line with the experience that Ireland has," he told The Irish Times.
This will be the first time Ireland has chaired the OSCE, an intergovernmental regional security organisation comprising 56 states, including all EU countries, Russia, the US and Canada.
The organisation deals with a wide range of security issues, including arms control, preventive diplomacy, confidence and security-building measures, human rights, election monitoring, and economic and environmental security.
“I think Ireland will be perceived as an honest broker,” said Zannier. “I think it has a very positive image. [This] is a time of change, a time when it is not easy to lead an organisation that links together so many different players: north America, Russia, the EU, Turkey, the countries of the Balkans and central Asia.
“It’s a very large community, and very diverse, and it is certainly not an easy task to be at the same time dealing with so many different issues and so many competing agendas.”
In recent months, several OSCE members have lobbied Ireland in relation to a range of issues including tensions between certain states.
Chairing the OSCE is, Zannier admits, “hard work” but he says it is an opportunity for Ireland to gain a higher profile.
“[It] puts you in a very peculiar situation because you have to be like the conductor of an orchestra and try to have everyone playing at the same cue. That is the nature of the challenge, so of course everyone will try to convince you of what the cue should be and having the stronger role. The pressures are there.”
An enduring issue for the OSCE is its often turbulent relationship with Russia. During a visit by Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore to Moscow last week, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia would “actively support” Ireland when it takes the helm of the OSCE in January.
“My view is that Russia still sees the OSCE as an important playground in terms of its relations with a number of key actors,” Zannier said.
“The Russians would like to, in a way, formalise a little more the role of the OSCE. They are still insisting on some form of legal basis for the organisation . . . with a kind of constitution that would allow them to use the organisation in a different way, a stronger way, than they do now.
“I don’t think Russia has necessarily any problem with the OSCE but it is sometimes frustrated because it would like to use the OSCE more and better for its own purposes.”