{"id":719,"date":"2018-07-06T21:51:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T21:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demsecinstitute.org\/?p=719"},"modified":"2024-09-04T18:33:03","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T18:33:03","slug":"helsinki-2-0-an-old-school-solution-to-an-old-school-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demsecinstitute.org\/?p=719","title":{"rendered":"Helsinki 2.0 – An Old-School Solution to an Old-School Problem?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Emmet Tuohy<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act in 2015, OSCE chairman-in-office Ivica Da\u010di\u0107 (then, as now, foreign minister of Serbia) called<\/a> the agreement a \u201chistoric triumph of cooperation over conflict that set the stage for the end of the Cold War.\u201d  In historical context, that is certainly true enough. Yet, even then, given the well-known events<\/a> in Ukraine the previous year\u2014specifically Russia\u2019s annexation of Crimea and the military intervention in the Donbas region\u2014there was ample cause to prompt a reassessment of the long-term impact of the Helsinki agreements. Former Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves argued that the main principle of the Act\u2014that hat state borders cannot be changed by force\u2014was \u201eno longer valid.\u201d  But if the problem is the emergence of a \u201enew Cold War,\u201d then perhaps the Cold War era can be the source of a solution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Source: foreignpolicynews.org<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concept of launching a \u201eHelsinki-2\u201d process to create a new Act is not a completely new idea. Even before Crimea, Lilia Shevtsova noted<\/a> that the then-budding initiative was \u201ereviving the Helsinki movement in the post-European space,\u201d as it aimed to \u201ebring back a normative dimension to foreign policy.\u201d Recently, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka of Belarus\u2014who played talks leading to the (as yet imperfectly-implemented, to say the least) Minsk Agreements between  Ukrainian government and Russian-backed separatists in 2015, has offered to convene what he says could be \u201ca new wide-scale dialogue between East and West.\u201d Belarus appears eager to cement itself as a  producer, not consumer, of regional security, with foreign minister Uladzimir Makei explaining<\/a> that it would be a continuation of what Belarus \u201chas been doing in recent years as part of efforts to resolve the crisis in Ukraine.\u201d Last July, Makei hinted that the focus of such a process would be broader than simply the region, arguing<\/a> that \u201cwe [the world] will sunderstand the urgent need to move from hostile rhetoric to a negotiating process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year, Helsinki 2.0 is no longer being presented as an abstract concept with hints and vague statements; Belarus has moved towards developing a more concrete program, whose \u201econcept<\/a>\u201d has reportedly already been finalized. Minsk has held consultations with representatives of a number of countries, including China, and wants to work closely with leading states and international organizations. Yet despite these claims, the development of this concept still appears to be vague\u2014especially on the key question of how it might succeed where Helsinki 1.0 did not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what does this new initiative mean in reality for the region? There are several clear problems with the initiative, including:<\/p>\n\n\n\n