Events

12 Nov 2025

Dapkiunas: Ignoring dissent in the OSCE is a path to its ruin

Photo courtesy of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

MINSK, 12 November (BelTA) – To ignore the multitude of voices and divergence of views within the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is to pave the way for its destruction, Belarus’ Permanent Representative to the OSCE Andrei Dapkiunas said at the organization’s session ahead of the OSCE ministerial meeting, BelTA learned from the press service of the Belarusian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The meeting discussed the vision presented by the current Finnish Chairmanship for enhancing the effectiveness and modernizing the activities of the organization. Assessing the multi-page document containing proposals from the OSCE participating states on how to make the organization fit for its purpose, the permanent representative of Belarus pointed out that the document fails to address the main reason for the organization’s current state and barely answers the most profound, fundamental question of “why?”. Why was it necessary to sign the Helsinki Final Act, why has Europe found itself in its current situation, why are the diplomats of the OSCE participating states unable to achieve the same success as their predecessors in 1975?

In the view of the Belarusian diplomat, the OSCE Chairmanship’s document does not provide honest and balanced answers to these questions.

Andrei Dapkiunas stated that today we need to talk about saving not so much the organization itself, but about saving the future of multilateral interaction and cooperation in the region, the future of security in Europe. The representative of Belarus suggested that states start with something simple: to communicate with each other in the large hall, in small groups, one-on-one. The method does not matter; the important thing is to talk to each other, to listen, to think.

“Moreover, it is important to engage in discussions not only with friends and like-minded people, but primarily with those who hold different views,” the diplomat emphasized.

The Belarusian ambassador stated that a key difference between the process leading to the 1975 Helsinki Final Act and today’s proceedings in Vienna is that, half a century ago, diplomats from opposing geopolitical camps did classical diplomatic work, conducting complex negotiations behind closed doors and without unnecessary publicity. Today, tempted by the immediacy and PR appeal of social media, many delegations practice what some call ‘public diplomacy’; this happens weekly at the meetings of the OSCE Permanent Council. In Andrei Dapkiunas’ opinion, this can hardly be called diplomacy.

“During five decades of a relatively successful Helsinki process, many have forgotten that the Helsinki Final Act was signed not only to mark a newfound sense of international unity, but primarily to overcome alienation and hostility between adversarial states. Unfortunately, this task now faces the OSCE participating states once again,” he noted.

Addressing the now frequent attempts to challenge the OSCE’s fundamental principle of consensus and, in essence, exclude Belarus and Russia from the decision-making mechanism, Andrei Dapkiunas stated that such ideas demonstrate a clear misunderstanding of the very reasons for the OSCE’s creation.

“The well-known saying that the United Nations was created not to bring heaven to mankind, but to save it from hell, is fully applicable to the OSCE as well. To believe the OSCE can or should exist solely as an organization of like-minded states is a profoundly naive worldview. Moreover, for the OSCE itself, such an approach would mean collapse; it is a path to nowhere,” the diplomat said.

The permanent representative of Belarus poured cold water on the proposal to compile a special OSCE code of conduct for mutually respectful behavior. Instead, he suggested that every participant simply make a personal choice to adopt a method of interaction that avoids insult or belittlement and is not rooted in a sense of personal or collective superiority.

“An arrogant assertion of one’s own rightness has never contributed to building a dialogue,” stated Andrei Dapkiunas. “Every time diplomats in a discussion refer to a sovereign government as a ‘regime’, every time they categorically throw ‘you must’ or ‘you should’ in the face of their interlocutor, every time they casually slap cheap accusatory labels on their opponents – each such time these self-righteous speakers simply exclude themselves from the game, become invisible to their opponents, and their opinions cease to matter to others.”

While wishing the OSCE Chairmanship’s advisory process success, the permanent representative of Belarus cautioned that a true revitalization of the organization will only be achieved once each participating state makes a conscious decision to fundamentally change its approach to interacting with other member states.



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