Malta welcomes foreign ministers of the 57 states belonging to the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting today and tomorrow. And the timing couldn’t be more critical for the only security organisation in which every player in the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security architecture sits at one table.

The OSCE was created 50 years ago, during the Cold War era, to “serve as a multilateral forum for dialogue and negotiation between the East and West”.

That polarisation has returned with a vengeance, with new wars threatening world security, and the rise of the far-right, which is exploiting a world awash with disinformation."

This means there is a desperate need for dialogue and negotiation.

At the end of last year, there was consensus for neutral Malta to take on the chair of the OSCE. While countries normally have years to prepare for the chair of the organisation, Malta stepped in at the 11th hour with a strong sense of responsibility to prevent a vacuum in leadership. And it leaves the post with remarkable success.

Earlier this week, the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna adopted a unanimous decision, recommending to OSCE foreign ministers to formally approve a new OSCE senior leadership package. As an honest and neutral broker, Malta has worked hard to find ways to reach consensus in an organisation where any member state can unilaterally block an agreement as it tries to press for concessions elsewhere.

But Malta’s work is not done yet. That agreement must be formalised at the Malta summit before handing the chair over to Finland.

Hopefully, all 57 member states will work to build on this consensus, leaving the door open for more negotiations to reach the necessary consensus on other pending issues that must not be allowed to paralyse the OSCE.

The main issue remains the Russian aggression against Ukraine. 

Thomas Greminger, the former OSCE secretary general, wrote recently: “There is a lot of talk in the context of the war in Ukraine… about the need to escalate in order to de-escalate.” But he rightly says we need to “escalate diplomacy… particularly in these difficult times. Diplomats are paid to talk to their enemies, not their friends. It is a risky business – and frankly I maintain the need for dialogue... and for exploring ways for sides to manage their relations without going over the edge of the abyss.”

The International Crisis Group, an independent organisation working to prevent wars, also declared in Brussels on November 26, 2022: “… it would be a mistake to allow the OSCE to lapse into irrelevance… It could form an important part of the European security architecture that emerges from the war in Ukraine. Its future will be circumscribed, however, without a concerted push today to preserve the organisation as a functional multilateral platform, protecting the useful work it is still able to do and preserving its capacity to realise its full potential when the situation improves.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha are expected to be among those attending the Malta summit in the next two days.

We can only hope the meeting in Malta will give the OSCE that concerted push it so badly needs to once again play a pivotal role in easing tensions between East and West and fostering a climate of cooperation and diplomacy in Europe.

It must also send a clear signal about the importance of human rights and media freedom – principles that are alarmingly scarce in some OSCE member states.