WEB EDITION No. 5 - Oct. 1991 Vol. 39 p. 23-26

THE CSCE AND THE CREATION OF A PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY Rafael Estrella, Member of the Spanish Senate The Charter of Paris for a New Europe, signed by the Heads of State and Government of the CSCE member states in November 1990, (1) mindful of the important part that parliamentarians can play in the CSCE process, called for 'greater parliamentary involvement in the CSCE, in particular through the creation of a CSCE parliamentary assembly, involving members of parliaments from all participating states'. Out of scrupulous respect for parliamentary sovereignty, the participating states who had adopted agreements on the structure, institutions and operation of the CSCE, confined themselves to issuing 'a call' for the creation of the Parliamentary Assembly. This call received a response in the Spanish initiative to convene a conference of parliamentarians in Madrid which met on 3 and 4 April 1991and laid the foundations for the creation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the CSCE. The proposals of the Madrid meeting were conveyed to the first meeting of the Council of Ministers of the CSCE, held in Berlin on 19 and 20 June 1991. Parliamentary consensus The seventeen written proposals sent by the various national parliaments reflected differing points of view about the characteristics, composition, operation and powers of the future Assembly and, in some cases, different conceptions regarding the design of the European architecture. As in the CSCE process which was initiated at Helsinki in 1975, consensus and the narrowing of differences were an indispensable prerequisite for the creation of the CSCE Assembly both before and during the conference. The idea of creating a Parliamentary Assembly had already appeared in the London Declaration adopted by the NATO Heads of State and Government in July 1990; (2) the Declaration proposed the establishment of 'a CSCE parliamentary body, the Assembly of Europe, to be based on the existing parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and include representatives of all CSCE memberstates'. Although the proposal to include this paragraph in the London Declaration was a United States initiative, some angry voices were raised against it in the US Congress, questioning both the procedure - Congress had not been consulted - and the substance of the proposal as it feared that other structures might take the place of NATO and its parliamentary assembly - the North Atlantic Assembly. During the Vienna preparatory meeting for last November's Paris Summit, the creation of a CSCE Assembly was agreed but it was decided to leave the decision as to its characteristics to the parliamentarians themselves. In this way, even though at first it seemed as if an 'institutional battle' was being unleashed - affecting mainly the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the North Atlantic Assembly but also involving the European Parliament and the Assembly of Western European Union (WEU) - thanks to a preliminary narrowing of the differences between the positions adopted by the various institutions, a considerable degree of consensus on the future CSCE Assembly and its relations to other institutions was achieved at last June's Madrid meeting. This convergence of positions both avoided the onset of serious differences on the Euro-Atlantic aspect of the CSCE and helped create an atmosphere in which the Madrid meeting could achieve consensus and compromise despite the number and variety of the participants. Structure of the CSCE Assembly: simplicity, pluralism and cooperation In harmony with the straightforward pattern of operation and institutions planned for the CSCE, the Madrid Resolution lays down a simple structure for the Assembly, and this will undoubtedly avoid duplication of effort and facilitate, where necessary, cooperation and coordination with other parliamentary assemblies that are regional in scope. This structural simplicity of the Assembly is reflected in the provisions of the Resolution with respect to the pattern of meetings - one a year and lasting no more than five days - and the secretariat, linked to the Spanish parliament until the constitutive meeting of the Assembly, which will be held in Prague in June 1992 when a small permanent secretariat is to be set up. In the same way, membership of the Assembly will be limited to 245 parliamentarians, with a distribution following the pattern of other existing parliamentary assemblies, and will observe the principle of plurality in the composition of the national delegations. Although consensus is the rule governing the taking of decisions in the Committee of Heads of Delegation, which has authority for everything connected with the operation and organization of the Assembly and any changes to be made in what was agreed at Madrid, the Resolution enshrines the principle of majority voting for all decisions adopted by the Assembly during its annual meetings, whether declarations, recommendations or proposals. Thus the Assembly emerges as a forum of dialogue, in which national parliamentarians can provide more effective monitoring of their respective governments in this area, as well as collectively influencing the CSCE process. With this in view, it is laid down that the Assembly 'shall regularly inform the parliaments of the states participating in the CSCE of its work and shall send its resolutions to the Council of Ministers for consideration'. The last question which needed to be discussed at the Madrid meeting concerned the role of the Assembly within the context of the other bodies and institutions that have been dealing with matters relating to the CSCE process. The solution adopted was to create a new Assembly which could embrace differing viewpoints within the overall framework of the CSCE, while not disregarding the work being carried on by other European parliamentary institutions; the work of these bodies, in fields sometimes overlapping with CSCE, is expressly recognized. With this in mind, and with the object of avoiding duplication of effort, the Resolution expresses the wish to 'establish links of close cooperation... and the will to use the resources of other parliamentary institutions (including the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Parliamentary Assembly of WEU, the North Atlantic Assembly and, on a different level, the European Parliament)'. Other organizations such as the Interparliamentary Union have also stated that they are fully prepared to work together with the Parliamentary Assembly of the CSCE. Innovation and pragmatism The different positions regarding the Assembly expressed during preparations for the Madrid meeting reflect, beyond 'institutional pride', the differences that exist regarding the role of the CSCE process in the new European security architecture. These differences are sometimes manifested at institutional level, but they are clearly rooted in national conceptions of politics. Consequently, the future development of the Assembly will be strongly influenced by the way in which the debate about the pattern of European security develops. Nevertheless, since its inception, the CSCE Parliamentary Assembly has demonstrated both pragmatism and an innovative spirit in defining its role vis-à-vis other assemblies. The formula chosen for the Assembly, which affirms its individuality and the independence of the CSCE process, but also cooperation with existing organizations, appears to be appropriate to the scenario of a Europe in transition. Completing as it does the institutional framework of the CSCE, the Assembly is ready to play its part in creating a stable framework able to absorb the changes now taking place in Europe and to minimize any disagreements. The Emergency Mechanism for crisis situations which was created last June by the Council of Ministers in Berlin and the new powers granted to the Conflict Prevention Centre constitute an important step towards establishing a CSCE operational security policy. This will enable situations that could not be dealt with by other organizations or institutions without increasing tensions, and hence without overstepping the limits of their present powers, to be handled by the pan-European structure of CSCE. Furthermore, the decision that the procedure can be initiated without the need for the agreement of the state in which the conflict has arisen is intended to overcome rigidity in applying the principle of consensus and, though limited by the principle of non-intervention, strengthens the psychological force of the security guarantee, a matter that will undoubtedly form part of the future agenda of the Assembly. These decisions strengthen the role of the CSCE and of its structures and institutions as a whole but at the same time, in so far as it has to meet specific situations, CSCE, like its Parliamentary Assembly, is aware of its own limitations and therefore seeks to cooperate with other organizations. Thus when Austria asked for the Emergency Mechanism created in Berlin to be activated, this was done by entrusting the European Community, and specific countries within the CSCE itself, with a difficult mission to Yugoslavia for the purpose of helping to bring about a cease-fire and of supervising the withdrawal of all the armed forces to their barracks. Although the pattern of cooperation chosen by the CSCE Parliamentary Assembly in Madrid poses difficulties of various kinds, especially operationally, it appears destined to be the guideline for the Assembly in the future. Hence the matrix of relationships can be more flexible and imaginative, and will be more complex, than a simple transposition of CSCE's three 'baskets' - human rights, cooperation and security - to relations with the Council of Europe, the European Community and NATO in their parliamentary dimensions. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Council of Europe has opened its doors to an increasingly close relationship with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe which are progressively moving towards membership of that institution. Also the European Community, which has set in train mechanisms to provide assistance during the process of economic restructuring, is negotiating association agreements with countries in Central and Eastern Europe, some of which have in view a much more ambitious objective i.e. full membership of the EC. In the case of both the Council of Europe and the EC, the links have also been paralleled at the level of parliamentary representation. The pattern of European security and the future of the CSCE As regards NATO, since July 1990 that organization has established regular liaison with states in Central and Eastern Europe, including the USSR in particular. Like the Council of Europe and the EC, the North Atlantic Assembly has at times gone ahead of NATO itself in relations with the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Thus, with the aim of adding a pan-European dimension to its traditional transatlantic approach, the North Atlantic Assembly has for the past three years maintained close contacts with the parliaments of those countries, which had included the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, by offering them the status of 'associated delegations', which enables them to take an active part in the work of the Assembly and its committees. It is, however, precisely in the domain of security that the main reservations with respect to the role of the CSCE and, of course, to the overall design of the new order of European security, are encountered. On the one hand, countries that were formerly members of the Warsaw Pact do not consider that the CSCE goes far enough, and are demanding an effective guarantee of security from NATO; and on the other, the United States had traditionally had serious doubts as to the desirability of diluting their authority in a body which now contains thirty-eight members, (3) in which a small country such as San Marino could exercise the right of veto. Nevertheless, the reservations of the United States and of some other Alliance countries have been diminishing in so far as the CSCE has taken on the guise of a supplement to NATO rather than a substitute for it, and this perception has been automatically transferred to the sphere of parliamentary relations. But whereas the activity of the CSCE in the near future appears to be increasingly clearly defined - confidence-building measures, prevention of conflicts, mediation missions and, possibly, monitoring and counteracting proliferation of nuclear weapons - the debate opened within the EC about foreign policy and joint security, and the even more vexed question of the security identity of the European Union, arouse the opposition of some members of the EC and serious reservations on the other side of the Atlantic, and this despite the declared determination that the strengthening of the European defence identity should take account of the position of certain member countries and help to strengthen the Atlantic Alliance, and despite the understanding expressed by the North Atlantic Council meeting in Copenhagen last June. (4) Then again, the future role of WEU, an institution with parliamentary links to the Council of Europe, as a bridge between NATO and the EC, or the question of what place it is to have in a future defence dimension of the European Union, appears to be clouded in uncertainty. Naturally, the framework of relations between the CSCE, with its Parliamentary Assembly, and other European-level organizations would be affected by any changes in the scenario described above. For example, if the EC decides to adopt a common security policy, seemingly a logical accompaniment of a common foreign policy, this would be bound to bring about a new framework for intra-European security relations, even if it would not necessarily lead to a weakening of existing institutions and, in particular, of the CSCE. The recent events in the former USSR and the subsequent quickening of the process of disintegration of the Union, have cast serious doubts on the future of the security arrangements in Europe including CFE; on the one hand, the Yugoslavian crisis has demonstrated the fragility of the CSCE process and, in particular, the weakness of its instruments. But this should not lead us to conclude that CSCE cannot become a valid instrument for the purposes stated in the Paris Charter. For the CSCE will in any event continue to possess a unique feature - its global nature. It is the only pan-European security framework covering the whole of the Euro-Atlantic community from Vancouver to Vladivostok. Furthermore, this security framework is not confined to a consideration of the purely military aspects since it regards the concept of democratic, institutional, economic and social stability as an indispensable foundation. Thanks to its global nature, the CSCE can bring to a European scene burdened with instability and dominated by disequilibria an authentic stimulus to integration, and may serve as a platform for extending the climate of security and cooperation to the Euro-Mediterranean area. For all these reasons, not only will cooperation with other institutions bring benefits to the CSCE, it will, above all, work to the benefit of these other institutions and of the European process as a whole. Notes: (1) NATO Review No.6, December 1990, p.27 (2) For the text of London Declaration see NATO Review No.4, August 1990, p.32 (3) Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania became members in September. (4) See statement on NATO's Core Security Functions in the New Europe and Communique published in NATO Review No.3, June, 1991, pp.30-33 © Copyright by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation 1991.