The Vienna Meeting Of The Conference On Security And Cooperation In Europe, 19861989

A Turning Point In East-west Relations

Stefan Lehne

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000306903
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This volume focuses on the third Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) Follow-Up Meeting which took place in Vienna from November 1986 to January 1989 against the background of dynamic developments in Eastern Europe.

1. From Helsinki to Vienna

1.1 The Origins of the Process

The idea came from the East.¹ Since the 1950s the Soviet Union had repeatedly proposed a conference to establish a European system of collective security. Through this initiative the Soviet leadership pursued three objectives. First, it expected the conference to adopt an agreement that would serve as a substitute for a European peace treaty and legitimate the Soviet Union's position in Europe. Second, it hoped that a new "All-European" forum, preferably without the participation of the United States, could be used to divide Western Europe from North America and to weaken the American role on the Continent. Third and finally, the Soviet Union thought, the conference might give fresh impetus to East-West economic cooperation and thus spur the economic development of the Soviet Union and its allies.

Not surprisingly, the initial Western response to the Soviet proposal was quite negative. But toward the end of the 1960s, against the background of a general warming in East-West relations, the idea of a European conference attracted new attention both in the East and the West. The Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968 temporarily slowed rapprochement on this issue. But in 1969, in response to a renewed appeal by the Warsaw Pact to convene a "general European conference to consider questions of European security and peaceful cooperation," the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) expressed its readiness to explore the potential issues and the framework of such negotiations. The more flexible Western attitude was made possible by the German Ostpolitik, which had by this time already deescalated the controversy on the postwar borders in Europe. It now appeared tempting to the West to exploit the strong Soviet desire for the conference — its convening became a personal ambition of Leonid Brezhnev — in order to obtain Soviet concessions on Western interests.

One fundamental condition for the Western agreement to the conference, the full participation of the United States and Canada, was soon accepted by the Warsaw Pact. But questions about which Western interests should be promoted through the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) were not so easily resolved. One school of thought, led by U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, saw the conference only in terms of leverage to obtain Soviet agreement on the convening of the Mutual Balanced Force Reduction (MBFR) talks and a result at the quadripartite negotiations on Berlin. It had little interest in the conference itself. A number of Western European governments disagreed with this position. They believed the CSCE was more than a "bargaining chip," that it offered a forum that should be used to obtain assurances for a liberalization of the Eastern regimes and for a lowering of the barriers between East and West. The United States eventually went along with this position, even though for a long time its interest in the conference remained extremely small and its participation in the negotiations on the Final Act was low-key. Still, the Western decision to seek normative commitments on the freer movement of people, ideas, and information opened the way for the central political tradeoff of the CSCE: the Warsaw Pact's interest in a recognition of the status quo against the Western desire for assurances for peaceful change toward greater freedom.

In 1969 and 1970 the two alliances clarified their position on the conference through an exchange of communiqués and declarations. The Warsaw Pact proposed two agenda items: European security and the expansion of economic, scientific, and technological cooperation. NATO's reply of May 1970 revealed the Western determination to give the CSCE a human dimension. According to NATO the conference should deal with:

1. the principles that should govern relations between states, including the renunciation of force, and
2. the development of international relations with a view to contributing to the freer movement of people, ideas, and information and to developing cooperation in the cultural, economic, technical, and scientific fields as well as in the field of human environment.²

The exchange of signals between the military alliances was followed with keen interest by the neutral and nonaligned states of Europe. Directly affected by the development of East-West relations but so far with limited influence on them, they expected the conference to offer them a valuable opportunity to participate in the management of East-West problems. Particularly important among the various statements by these governments in support of the conference was the initiative of the Finnish government, which offered to act as a host both to the conference itself as well as to preparatory consultations.

The way to the convening of these talks was finally cleared in the fall of 1972 when the Western conditions, the four-power agreement on Berlin and an agreed date for the opening of the MBFR talks, were fulfilled. The Finnish government had invited all European states, the United States, and Canada to participate in the preparatory work. Only Albania declined to take part. Monaco joined at the beginning of the main conference. The preparatory negotiations took from November 22, 1972, to June 8, 1973, and resulted in an agreement on the agenda of the conference, on its organizational structure, and on its rules of procedure.

The agenda comprised four main items, or "baskets" as they were named in CSCE jargon:³

1. Questions relating to security;
   • — principles of relations between participating states
   • — confidence-building measures
2. Cooperation in the fields of economics, of science and technology, and of the environment;
3. Cooperation in humanitarian and other fields;
4. Follow-up to the conference.

The structure of the conference reflected a compromise between the East's desire for high-level political meetings and the West's wish for substantive negotiations on normative texts. The conference was to begin by a short meeting of the foreign ministers followed by a second stage devoted to the drafting of the final document and by a concluding stage for the adoption of this document.

The rules of procedure were important as they were to become the ground rules for the entire CSCE process. Most significant was Paragraph 69 of the final recommendations:

Decisions of the Conference shall be taken by consensus. Consensus shall be understood to mean the absence of any objection expressed by a Representative and submitted by him as constituting an obstacle to the taking of the decision in question.⁴

The adoption of the consensus rule was logical not only in view of the numerical imbalance of Eastern and Western participants but also since it corresponded best to the principle of the sovereign equality of all participating states, on which the entire conference was based. It further enhanced the political weight of the conference's results, which would have the explicit support of thirty-five states. The price was long and complex negotiations and a tendency to hide conflicting interests behind vague and ambiguous formulations.

Second in importance was the decision to rotate the chair on a daily basis between all participating states. Like the consensus rule, this corresponded to the equal status of all delegations. As a consequence, chairmanship was reduced to a mere technical function that allowed the neutral and nonaligned delegations to assume the essential tasks of steering and coordinating the negotiations outside the CSCE's formal meetings.

The foreign ministers meeting from July 3 to July 7, 1973, in Helsinki was devoted to general political statements and to the adoption of the recommendations of the ambassadors regarding the conference's mandate and structure. The negotiations on the Final Act commenced on September 18, 1973, in Geneva and lasted until July 21, 1975, Achieving consensus among thirty-five governments on a document comprising all major aspects of interstate relations proved enormously difficult. While the East, at least initially, aimed at a generally worded document that would allow an early conclusion of the conference on the level of heads of states, the West, and in particular the Western European governments, insisted on concrete commitments concerning human rights and humanitarian questions. Several of the issues dealt with — such as, in the case of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the inviolability of frontiers — touched on the central interests of participating states. Others, such as the provisions concerning human contacts, dealt innovatively with subjects never before addressed in multilateral negotiations. The general political situation marked by the Watergate scandal in the United States, the Vietnam fiasco, the Yom Kippur war, and the beginning erosion of the détente policy further complicated the task of the negotiators.

But the momentum of the process and the determination of some parties to achieve results — in particular Brezhnev's strong personal interest in a summit — in the end proved strong enough to overcome all obstacles.⁵ When the heads of states and governments eventually assembled in Helsinki from July 30 to August 1, 1975, to sign the Final Act of the conference, there was general agreement about the document's historic character. At the same time many speakers noted that a long and arduous road remained to be traveled before the promises contained in the Final Act became a reality.

1.2 The Final Act

The Helsinki Final Act is not a legally binding treaty but, rather, a political document that is binding insofar as the participating states have, both in its text as well as on the occasion of its signing, stated their determination to fully implement its provisions.⁶ In its substance, the Final Act is a comprehensive code of conduct whose chapters cover all major areas of international relations — military matters as well as humanitarian concerns, aspects of economic relations as well as issues concerning information, and education and culture. It includes concrete normative commitments, general statements of intent, declaratory texts, and procedural provisions.

In political terms the Helsinki Final Act is marked by an ambivalence resulting from the fundamentally different attitudes of East and West. From the East's point of view, the document essentially confirmed and legitimized the existing geopolitical situation on the Continent. From this perspective the normative content of the Final Act as a program for the future development of East-West relations is derived from this recognition of the status quo. The Western governments, for their part, always highlighted the basic divergences between the provisions of the Final Act and the existing realities in the East. While they emphasized human rights, they also pointed to the contradiction between the principles of sovereign equality, self-determination and nonintervention, and the Soviet domination of Eastern Europe. In the view of the West the Final Act does not reflect or confirm the status quo. On the contrary, it constitutes a set of normative commitments with which the situation in Europe should be brought in conformity.

As a consequence of these divergent approaches, the CSCE process that is based on the Final Act always had a dual nature. On the one hand, it was an instrument of détente policy aimed at reducing tensions, building confidence, and strengthening cooperation. On the other hand, it could also be used to challenge the status quo in the East and to promote far-reaching systemic change. It is precisely this duality that kept the CSCE process relevant and important in times of high tensions between East and West as well as in periods of détente.

As the Final Act remains of fundamental importance for the understanding of the Helsinki process its main elements are summed up below.

1.2.1 Basket I: Questions Relating to Security in Europe

Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations between Participating States

The Declaration on Principles is clearly derived from earlier international documents such as the U.N. Charter, the U.N. Declaration on Friendly Relations, or the Declaration on Basic Principles of U.S.-Soviet Relations (1972). Ten principles are included:

1. Sovereign equality, respect for the rights inherent in sovereignty;
2. Refraining from the threat of use of force;
3. Inviolability of frontiers;
4. Territorial integrity of states;
5. Peaceful settlement of disputes;
6. Nonintervention in internal affairs;
7. Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief;
8. Equal rights and self-determination of peoples;
9. Cooperation among states; and
10. Fulfillment in good faith of obligations under international law.

Even though most of its provisions do not exceed accepted rules of international law as codified in the Friendly Relations Declaration, the declaration nevertheless constitutes the backbone of the Final Act. It contains the central trade-off of the conference: in Principle III, "Inviolability of frontiers," the Soviet Union obtained a qualified acceptance of the existing frontiers in Europe. In fact, only physical attacks on these frontiers are prohibited, and the declaration explicitly states (in Principle I) that borders can be changed peacefully. Still, recognition of the territorial status quo was the highest Soviet priority at the conference, and the West's acceptance of Principle III was considered by the Soviet Union as a major diplomatic success.

The East's counterbalancing concession came under principie vil, "Respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief." The eight paragraphs enunciating this principle, including provisions on religious freedom, national minorities, and a reference to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the U.N. convenants on human rights, are phrased in rather general terms but nevertheless reflect a clearly Western conception of human rights. More important, the Final Act goes beyond the U.N. Charter and the convenants in according to human rights the same status as the other fundamental tenets of international relations. More clearly than ever before, the promotion of human rights is recognized not as an internal matter of any state but as an essential factor in strengthening international security and thus as a legitimate subject of discussions between governments.

Document on Confidence-Building Measures and Certain Aspects of Security and Disarmament

This chapter contains one mandatory confidence-building measure (CBM), that is the prior notification of major military maneuvers (more than 25,000 men), as well as some voluntary measures (the notification of smaller maneuvers, the invitation of observers to attend military maneuvers, the notification of major military movements, and the exchange of military personnel). The inclusion of these provisions in the Final Act resulted, on the one hand, from the belief of many Western and neutral and nonaligned countries that the final document of a Conference on Security and Cooperation should have some concrete military content (the Soviet Union would have preferred a purely declaratory text on military security), and, on the other, from the common interest of most NATO and Warsaw Pact countries to concentrate serious arms control negotiations in the more restricted framework of the MBFR talks in Vienna.

The neutral and nonaligned countries, whose shared interests as nonparticipants in the bloc-to-bloc negotiations first brought them together as the so-called N+N group, had pressed for strengthening the CSCE's military dimension. But their wish to link the MBFR negotiations to the CSCE through arrangements for their information on the progress of these talks was rejected by the MBFR participants.⁷

The confidence-building measures of the Final Act — while of very limited military relevance — were nevertheless important as steps in the development of a new instrument of military security policy. The potential of such measures for making military activities more open and predictable would only be realized during later negotiations, particularly at the Stockholm Conference.

1.2.2 Basket II: Cooperation in the Fields of Economics, of Science and Technology, and of the Environment

Even though Basket II makes up about one-third of the text of the Final Act, it is nevertheless true that work of economic and related issues in the CSCE never achieved the importance accorded to the negotiations on security on the one hand and human rights and humanitarian issues on the other. This secondary role of economic issues in the CSCE has various reasons:

First of all, as John J. Maresca puts it, the Eastern European countries, who as the proponents of the item of economic cooperation for the conference agenda were by definition in the role of demandeur, refused to fulfill this role once the negotiations had started.⁸ The Soviet Union obviously attached such priority to its interests in the security field that it was reluctant to overload the negotiations with additional substantive concerns that would have prolonged the work. In the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acronyms
• Preface
• 1. From Helsinki to Vienna
• 2. East - West Relations at the Outset of the Vienna Meeting
• 3. The Vienna Meeting: Issues and Positions
• 4. The Development of the Vienna Meeting
• 5. The Results of the Vienna Meeting
• 6. Postscript
• Annex I: Tables of Proposals
• Annex II: CSCE Meeting: 1972-1992
• Annex III: Vienna Concluding Document
• Index