What the OSCE’s loss of legitimacy tells us about the state of norm-based European security
Europe is once again divided. Although the fault lines between East and West now extend further east, they are causing tensions that are shaking European societies to their core and, in some cases, leading to extreme internal polarisation. Rearmament, deterrence and border closures are back on the agenda rather than cooperation and dialogue. The consequences may be dire, particularly for societal and human security, but also for evolving security needs and local and regional expectations.Furthermore, the crisis of European security goes hand in hand with a crisis of multilateralism and the dominance of military over diplomatic solutions.
The situation of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), founded as a multilateral forum to promote cooperative security and norm-based cooperation among European states and societies, reflects the weakness of traditional multilateral institutions. Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and the US withdrawal from international forums and commitments have put considerable pressure on the OSCE’s founding principles of multilateral action, particularly with regard to cooperative security and democratic institutions. The »co-operative security« approach frames security relations between states in terms of standing with each other rather than against each other. Since2022 at the latest, it has become apparent that realising this ideal is no longer practically feasible. Global power shifts and some states’ increasing autocratisation are also reflected within the OSCE (only two-thirds of OSCE’s participating states are currently classified as democratic).[1]
The OSCE has been suffering a crisis of legitimacy since 2022. It has become marginalised in discourses on European security, including the current discussions on potential security guarantees for Ukraine. The contrast between the OSCE's broad,inclusive foundation of participating states and the narrow and increasingly fragile understanding of common interests and normative convictions (»liberal overstretch«) has magnified the parlous state of norm-based European security.[2]
The OSCE’s core competences in conflict management and resolution have been called into question. Indeed, since the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas in 2014, the OSCE has been unable to broker a negotiated solution between Russia and Ukraine. The OSCE-mandated Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine (SMM), which was tasked with overseeing the ceasefire agreement, was also unable to prevent the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Despite high-level mediation in the context of the Normandy format, the agreement negotiated and signed by the Trilateral Contact Group (the Minsk Protocols) suffered from many shortcomings, one of which was certainly its inadequately planned implementation. While the OSCE can facilitate dialogue between conflicting parties, it is powerless when two of its member states are at war and one of them shows no political will to find a solution. There is some truth in the dictum that the OSCE can only be as strong as its participating states allow it to be.Ultimately, it is not an autonomous entity and can act only on the basis of unanimous decisions by the Permanent Council, its central decision-making body,which is composed of all 57 participating states. The reason it did not meet its own objectives, as in the case of the SMM, was not its deficient capabilities and instruments, but rather the inadequate mandate given to it by the participating states. Therefore, it is misguided to speak broadly of the Organization's failure and to propose a new, overarching security structure for Europe that includes the same participating European states (see for example, Budraitskis/Yudin,2024[3]).Any new structure would be affected by the same divisions and structural disagreements in Europe regarding normative convictions and interests.
Based on the results of an ongoing SWP research project[4] on the transformation of norms and legitimacy among OSCE participating states, this contribution focuses first on the reporting system within the politico-military dimension as an indicator of participating states' adherence to norm-based behaviour, their jointly agreed self-commitments, and ultimately, the multilateral security structure in Europe. The paper then explores ways in which the OSCE can regain legitimacy and remain relevant in matters of European security. First, it will need to refocus on its regional strengths. Second, it must pay more attention to civil society as a driver of security »from below«.
[1] https://www.idea.int/publications/catalogue/html/global-state-democracy-2025-democracy-move
[2] Cf. Christian et al. (2023).
[3] Budraitskis, Ilya and Yudin, Greg(2024): Overcoming the Rivalry Between Military Blocs in Europe, IGRec Policy Papers. Available at: https://www.igrec.io/articles/overcoming-the-rivalry-between-military-blocs-in-europe.
[4] The project is funded by the GermanFederal Foreign Office. As part of the sub-project on changing norms andlegitimacy within the OSCE, expert interviews have been conducted with militaryadvisers from permanent missions and national ministries of the participatingstates, staff from the OSCE Secretariat, and independent experts. These weresupplemented by an AI-assisted evaluation of OSCE documents and publishednational questionnaires within the framework of the Code of Conduct onPolitico-Military Aspects of Security. The author thanks Celina Thadewaldt andSimon Muschick for their research assistance and data compilation.
