CORE participates in OSCE Parliamentary Assembly event

The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) brings together members of parliament from all 57 OSCE participating States. From May 5 to May 7, 2023, the OSCE PA met in Berlin to discuss OSCE field operations in Southeastern Europe, Moldova, and Ukraine. Parliamentarians, members of national delegations to the OSCE, officials from both the PA and OSCE Secretariats, representatives from other international organizations, and researchers examined how Russia’s war against Ukraine has affected OSCE field activities and also exacerbated other challenges, such as with regard to the OSCE’s finances. 
Dr. Cornelius Friesendorf from the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy’s (IFSH) Centre for OSCE Research (CORE) highlighted three challenges to the OSCE and proposed solutions for addressing them.

First, how can governments ensure that the OSCE remains operational despite facing budget shortages?

Second, how can Western states continue to engage with a revisionist Russia within the OSCE, a consensus-based organization in which Russia has the power to exercise a veto?

Third, how can the OSCE continue to support activities related to democratization and human rights in participating States that contest liberal norms that have enabled the creation of OSCE structures and institutions in the 1990s?

The gathering in Berlin was the sixth annual Leinsweiler Seminar of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. The event was hosted by the German Bundestag delegation to the OSCE PA and supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.