The Making of the Helsinki Final Act: a View from Belgrade

When the first phase of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe concluded in Helsinki in July 1973, everyone knew a historic first step had been made towards ending the Cold War. But the Helsinki Final Act was still unwritten. The agreement that became the cornerstone of European security was crafted in phase two of the Conference, not in Finland but in Geneva, Switzerland, from 18 September 1973 to 1 August 1975.

It was a new experiment in international relations. The rules of procedure stipulated that each country had an equal voice, and each had the power of veto. Proposals numbered in the thousands. East and West competed for acceptance of their positions. The neutral and non-aligned states mediated, but also championed their own causes.

Vladimir Bilandzic was a young research fellow for international politics and economics in Belgrade at the time. He joined the delegation of Yugoslavia to the Geneva negotiations as an international security expert for most of the second year. He recalls the dynamics of the negotiations and the special Yugoslav concern to bring a “world dimension” into the agreement on European security.

How were the Geneva meetings organized?

The meetings took place first at the Villa Moynier close to the Palace of Nations, then  in the premises of the International Labour Organization and finally in the new International Conference Centre of Geneva. It was really a mix of formal and informal meetings. Plenaries took place once a week, although later, as the negotiations were coming to an end, they were more frequent because there was a need for the heads of delegation to strike compromises about the most contentious parts of the text. 

There were committee meetings for each of the three baskets – on security and the basic principles guiding relations between states (the so-called Helsinki Decalogue), on economic and environmental issues and on humanitarian matters. There were also special working groups, for instance on the Mediterranean and on the non-use of force. Many negotiations were actually conducted in the corridors. There were long coffee breaks which were actually used for informal and bilateral negotiations.

Very often in the last month, in June 1975, talks went late into the night. But there were also periods before that summer with a relatively easy pace. There were, of course, other international events that affected the discussion – the end of the Vietnam War, for instance – but negotiations proceeded unobstructed by these wider developments.

There were basically three groups of states – Western states, the Soviet Union and members of the Warsaw Pact, and the neutral and non-aligned states. This last group consisted of four neutral states plus Yugoslavia, plus later on Malta and Cyprus. Ireland was neutral as well; however, it was not part of this group.

What was the role of the neutral and non-aligned group?

At the beginning, it was mostly a role of mediation, of finding a middle ground between the two blocs. But later on, the group also presented its own interests and proposals, including one on confidence-building measures.

There was a process for agreeing on common positions. It was a heterogeneous group. In the beginning, the area of common interests was limited mainly to military security and things like that, but later it expanded. Some countries, Austria, Switzerland and Sweden, for instance, took a leading role on human rights. Yugoslavia was not a democratic country with a multi-party system at that time and could not go as far as others. Still, there was common ground – on the rights of national minorities, for instance.

Yugoslavia promoted what colloquially was called at that time “the world dimension”. It insisted that security in Europe could not be divided from the security of other regions, that Europe shouldn’t be an island of civility while the rest of the world was underdeveloped and suffering from conflicts. It therefore argued that this “world dimension” or, in other words, a global approach, should be introduced into the text of the Helsinki Final Act. Formulations in this spirit were indeed included in some of the provisions. For instance, in the introduction to the Declaration on Principles Guiding Relations between Participating States, the participating States recognized “the need for each of them to make its contribution to the strengthening of world peace and security”. And in Principle IX (Co-operation among States), it is stated that they “will take into account the interest of all in the narrowing of differences in the levels of economic development, and in particular the interest of developing countries throughout the world.” Another example can be found in the section on questions relating to disarmament, where it is stated that the participating States are convinced that effective measures in this field “should result in strengthening peace and security throughout the world.”

Of course, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent developments in Europe, the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the expansion of the European Union, all this has changed. But I think it is still interesting to analyse the dynamics of the negotiations at that time.

How did the negotiations work practically?

The general rule was that, in the text of the Helsinki Final Act, “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.” That’s the phrase which was always used. Theoretically, if just one paragraph had not been adopted, the whole document would have been regarded as not agreed. This is really the approach that was used.

The use of brackets in the text was very common. If delegations saw that there was no agreement on a certain part of the text, in order not to stop the negotiations they would simply say: “let’s put it in brackets and proceed further and come back to it later.” This use of brackets was mastered almost to perfection: at some point there was more text within than outside of them. Sometimes the discussion was about whether there should be commas in the sentences – this was the case regarding the principle of inviolability of frontiers and how borders can be changed by peaceful means. And near the end of the negotiation, the question of different language versions came up, about translation from English, which was the drafting language, into Russian, German, French, Italian and Spanish. There was concern among some delegations that a commitment that may be clear in English would not be as clear in other languages.

It was a very complex negotiation. Parts of the document were conditional upon others. In order to get consensus on one sentence or principle one had to agree simultaneously on another sentence or principle. There were frequently what were called package deals, even overarching different baskets.

There was a strict use of the rule of consensus – it was very much respected. Any delegation, including the smallest one representing the smallest country, could delay or block a decision. This actually happened near the very end, when the whole text of the Helsinki Final Act was agreed, but Malta insisted on a formulation regarding the Mediterranean and blocked the conference for almost two days until a compromise was found. This was on the front pages of all the newspapers at the time. 

And there was a creative use of the clock on the final evening of the negotiations, when at midnight the deadline for agreeing on the text of the Helsinki Final Act was passing. The clock was stopped in the conference room and the fiction adopted that it was finalized in the agreed time.

Today, two years may look like a very long period of negotiation for a document, but one has to realize that the Helsinki Final Act was almost a blank page at the beginning. The basic principles had been agreed already in Helsinki, during the Preparatory Meeting, but not the text itself. Two years of negotiation is, I think, not that long for a text of the magnitude of the Helsinki Final Act.

How would you compare negotiations then and now in the OSCE?

The rule of consensus was the supreme element then and now – this has not changed. Today, in spite of all the difficulties, Europe is obviously much more united than it was. At that time, there was a strong feeling that new ground was being broken in international relations. All the participating States were eager to produce a document that would reinforce security in Europe and nobody wanted to risk a failure of the agreement. So I think in retrospect the conference was bound to succeed. But it was not at all easy. The political systems were very different at the time and the systems of values were different.

There was maybe a tendency to take things – I wouldn’t necessarily say more seriously, but words mattered a lot at the time. Every sentence was analysed. This was a common exercise, but also a sort of duel between the two sides, about whose interests would prevail. It was also an ideological rivalry, and in some circles there was skepticism about the whole exercise. So capitals, the people at home, had to be convinced of the value of the whole process.

All of the elements of today’s OSCE were included in one way or another in the Helsinki Final Act. Many operational provisions are not relevant anymore, but the basic principles are still valid and the basic values, like human rights, sovereign equality of states, are still very much a matter of legitimacy for the peaceful settlement of disputes. Also the military confidence- and security-building measures, although they were modest compared to today’s, were actually a breakthrough, because for the first time the countries committed themselves to announcing military maneuvers in advance in order to prevent misunderstanding and reduce risk.

Of course, one of the most important things, without which the OSCE would not have evolved into the international organization it is today, was that an agreement was reached to continue the process. At the beginning of the conference, it was not guaranteed that all of the states would be ready to continue. Some were of the view that the Helsinki Final Act should be the end of the matter. But in fact, there was a decision to have a follow-up meeting – in Belgrade. Why was Belgrade chosen? Yugoslavia was a member of the neutral and non-aligned group and had not yet hosted an event (as had Switzerland and Finland). Also, it was very active in the non-aligned movement in the United Nations, and it had a strong connection with the Mediterranean at the time. So the Geneva negotiations of the Helsinki Final Act were a beginning, not an end, and I think this is extremely important.

After the signing of the Helsinki Final Act, Vladimir Bilandzic went on to participate in CSCE follow-up meetings and negotiations of confidence- and security-building measures (CSBMs). Today, he is National Special Advisor for CSBMs in the OSCE Mission to Serbia.

This is the third in a series of articles on the Helsinki Final Act published in Security Community on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of this fundamental document of the OSCE.  Previously: “Reviving the Helsinki Spirit” by Lamberto Zannier (Issue 1, 2015) and “Whither the Second Basket?” by Kurt P. Tudyka (Issue 2, 2015).

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For a comprehensive account of the CSCE process by a participant from the former Yugoslavia, see Problems of Security and Cooperation in Europe by Ljubivoje Aćimović (Sijthoff & Noordhoff, 1981). First published in Serbo-Croatian under the title Problemi bezbednosti i saradnje u Evropi.