Status: 12/02/2022 4:53 p.m
The Council of Ministers of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) ended in Lodz, Poland. The representatives of the 57 member states could not agree on a resolution on the war in Ukraine.
Against the background of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, the foreign ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) were unable to agree on a joint resolution. There was no consensus on this, said the OSCE chairman, Poland’s Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, at the end of the Lodz Council of Ministers. “It’s the most difficult year in the history of the organization, and the reason for this is well known,” Rau said, referring to the war.
OSCE “neither paralyzed, in a coma nor dead”
The attitude of the overwhelming majority of member countries to Russian aggression against Ukraine is also well known. According to Rau, however, it would have been pointless to look for a general final document that had no connection to political reality. “That would not have benefited the credibility of the organization.”
Nevertheless, the OSCE is still needed as a forum for dialogue, said North Macedonia’s Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani, who will take over the OSCE chairmanship from Rau next year. The organization is “neither paralyzed, in a coma or dead”, but rather has shown its resilience in an unprecedentedly difficult time.
Poland refuses entry to Russian foreign minister
Both Ukraine and Russia are among the 57 member states of the OSCE. However, the meeting in Lodz took place without the Russian head of department, Sergei Lavrov, because Poland had refused him entry. Instead, Russia was represented by its Permanent Representative to the OSCE, Alexander Lukashevich.
Lavrov fired a broadside against the organization from Moscow on Thursday. “The spirit and letter of the OSCE Charter have been destroyed,” he said. The OSCE is dominated by the West and has thus lost its own importance as a mediator. Lukashevich expressed himself in Lodz in a similar way to his boss and accused the West of “rapid appropriation” of the organization.
The OSCE, based in Vienna, emerged from the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) established in 1975, which promoted detente between East and West. In October she condemned the Russian attacks in Ukraine as “terror” against the civilian population.