The successful outcome of the meeting of the Ministerial Council of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Malta shows how wise neutral Malta was to take up the chairmanship of OSCE for 2024. Only neutral Malta had the necessary consensus.
While other countries had years to prepare for the chairmanship, “It is therefore all the more remarkable that Malta, with so little time to prepare, has been doing such a great job in steering the ship” (Thomas Greminger, former OSCE secretary general, November 1, 2024).
Against all odds, and as an honest broker, Malta managed to find consensus among all 57 participating states to fill the top four leadership positions of the secretariat and institutions of the OSCE.
Diplomats, highly critical of how the OSCE has been instrumentalised against their country in recent years, privately acknowledged that Malta’s chairmanship, like the Austrian one in 2017, was “honest, energetic, professional and impartial”.
It is going to take a lot of hard work and probably a new generation of political leaders to heal the deep divisions within Europe by resurrecting the spirit of The Charter of Paris for a New Europe. The charter was signed in 1990 by 34 states, mostly European countries, including Malta, the Soviet Union, Canada and the United States. It sought to recognise the “new era of democracy, peace and unity” signalled by the end of the Cold War period.
It reaffirmed the end of the “era of confrontation and division of Europe” and the commitment to respectful and cooperative relations between signatory countries:
“With the ending of the division of Europe, we will strive for a new quality in our security relations while fully respecting each other’s freedom of choice in that respect. Security is indivisible and the security of every participating State is inseparably linked to that of all the others. We therefore pledge to cooperate in strengthening confidence and security among us and in promoting arms control and disarmament.”
It also proposed to “continue efforts to strengthen security and cooperation in the Mediterranean as an important factor of stability in Europe”.
The project of a cooperative security architecture for Europe fizzled out when Russia’s security concerns were dismissed with contempt
The project of a cooperative security architecture for Europe from Lisbon, in Portugal to Vladivostok, in Russia fizzled out when Russia’s security concerns were dismissed with contempt and NATO expanded its borders. In 1962, the United States was outraged and was ready to go to war to stop the Soviet Union from equipping a military base in neighbouring Cuba with missiles that could reach American cities. In the same way, since the time of President Mikhail Gorbachev, Russia has been warning the United States not to expand NATO to its borders, especially to Ukraine, as that poses an existential security threat.
Even the renowned American diplomat and architect of the Cold War containment strategy, George Kennan, warned in 1998 that expanding NATO was a bad idea. “I think it is the beginning of a new Cold War. I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely and it will affect their policies. I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else.”
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in an interview with the BBC, has argued that her opposition to Ukraine’s NATO membership in 2008 was a deliberate move to prevent war. “It was completely clear to me that President [Vladimir] Putin would not have stood idly by and watched Ukraine join NATO. We would have seen military conflict even earlier, and it would likely have been worse.” Merkel was not alone in opposing the expansion of NATO to Ukraine in 2008. She had support from France in addition to Spain, Italy, the Benelux countries, Portugal and Norway.
Instrument of peace
Next year is the OSCE’s 50th anniversary. It is the only security organisation in which everyone important to the Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian security architecture sits at one table. The OSCE will have a meaningful future only if it is used for dialogue, negotiation, mutual respect and understanding and does not allow itself to be taken over by a military alliance like NATO to weaponise it against any of its own members.
Member states must ensure that unilateral structures like the OSCE are given the necessary leadership, legitimacy and resources so as not to become dysfunctional. Setting up alternative arrangements of fake multilateralism of “like-minded” countries that marginalise and exclude those they disagree with serve no purpose except to foment deeper division and polarisation.
Malta’s success in chairing the OSCE shows that the noble mission of neutral Malta, without any illusions of grandeur, should try to be “an instrument of peace” and bring “union where there is discord” by talking to everybody, being friends to all and providing a space where countries in conflict with each other can meet to explore how to solve their disputes by peaceful means.
In September 2023, neutral Malta was chosen as a meeting place for top security leaders Wang Yi and Jake Sullivan of China and the United States. We are still proud that, in December 1989, neutral Malta hosted the meetings between US President George Bush and Gorbachev.
Neutrality is our best line of defence as we threaten no one and allow no one to threaten others from our territory.
Why look for trouble and join a military alliance like NATO or take part in the military programme of the EU when technology of transport and armaments have made our strategic location obsolete?
We should take advantage of our irrelevance militarily to focus on the meaningful role, however modest, we can have in negotiations, dialogue and diplomacy for peace. Being friends with everyone is indispensable for our prosperity and peace, trading with the rest of the world, attracting investment and tourists.
The best way to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the birth of our republic is to be true in spirit and deed to our constitution where we declare: “Malta is a neutral state actively pursuing peace, security and social progress among all nations by adhering to a policy of non-alignment and refusing to participate in any military alliance… no foreign military base will be permitted on Maltese territory; no military facilities in Malta will be allowed to be used by any foreign forces.”
Evarist Bartolo is a former Labour foreign and education minister.