Accept Reality and Work with It: Interview with Adam Kobieracki
Adam Kobieracki was the Director of the OSCE Conflict Prevention Centre (CPC) from 2011 to 2015. He looks back on a long engagement with the OSCE, beginning in 1986, when he was a member of the Polish delegation to the CSCE Follow-up meeting in Vienna. As a Polish diplomat he played a leading role in the negotiation of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty and the CFE adaptation talks.
He joined the Polish Permanent Mission to the OSCE in Vienna in 1991 and led negotiations of security documents including Stabilizing Measures for Localized Crisis Situations, the Vienna Document 1994 and the OSCE Charter on European Security. He headed the Polish delegation from 1997 to 2000, chairing the Permanent Council during Poland’s OSCE Chairmanship in 1998.
What changes did you witness during your term of office as Director of the Conflict Prevention Centre?
Four years ago the OSCE area was more stable, of course. Yes, there were protracted conflicts, there were tensions, but not comparable to what we have been facing since a year and a half ago in Ukraine. So our conflict prevention, operationally, has changed a little. Our main operational effort is de facto crisis management in Ukraine.
Otherwise, there has been an obvious, ongoing tendency towards changing the format of our field operations. Some have been closed, some transformed into project co-ordinator offices. The reasons vary. Participating States may have the perception that hosting a field presence carries with it a stigma, or they may be unhappy with political reporting, or with reporting in general.
We have to accept this as a fact of life. It simply means both a challenge and an opportunity for the OSCE to reinvent our involvement in the field. Perhaps we would need smaller offices, some kind of Secretariat outposts; perhaps we would need sub-regional or regional presences. That remains to be seen. But I think the change will probably happen, not as the implementation of a pre-negotiated concept, but rather as circumstances dictate.
Currently we are working on the establishment of a small presence in Minsk, to support the Trilateral Contact Group [the negotiation body for resolving the conflict in and around Ukraine, comprising Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE]. This is not something that could have been negotiated as a concept. It is a reaction to a requirement of the day. And I think this is what will happen with our other field presences.
By no means am I saying that they are not needed. We need some kind of presence in the field. We need to have eyes and ears on the ground. We need our colleagues to have a really good understanding of problems that may lead to tensions or crises throughout the OSCE area. If what we have now is not acceptable to some of our participating States – OK, we have to accept the reality and work with them. In a few cases, we might be able to change a little the way our missions are functioning. Or we could invent something new, without compromising on core principles, standards and norms, the three dimensions of security. These should be untouchable. How we implement our commitments, how we work – that’s a different thing.
What new kind of field office might work well in your opinion?
There are different scenarios possible. As far as having access to people on the ground is concerned, experts working in project co-ordination offices can maintain contacts with different organizations, institutions and networks just as well as members of conventional field missions can. The difference is political reporting. This reporting function would have to be somehow developed. It could be conducted through the reporting on the implementation of projects. That is one possibility. The other might be to have mobile teams, visiting teams.
Our open-ended working group on the conflict cycle is continuing its work and is focusing not only on mediation but also on different forms of conflict prevention, crisis management and crisis resolution. One of them is early warning: early warning is very close to political reporting.
There is a need to take a look and to develop new instruments. It is impossible for me to predict how exactly they would look. There are too many things that make the picture really complicated. The current security situation, to put it mildly, is a bit unstable. There is the implementation record, as far as norms and standards and principles are concerned. There is an ongoing dispute among participating States about who is implementing, who respects our norms and who does not. There is absolutely no trust or confidence among our participating States. I have no idea in which direction things will go, whether we will end up negotiating a new security framework for Europe or rather develop the OSCE in the direction of a more flexible organization. I have no idea, as far as the Ukrainian crisis is concerned, whether the dust will settle next year or whether it will take longer. There will be important political developments next year, starting with the NATO summit, which will contribute to the overall security perception in the OSCE area. There are too many things in the making. So the only thing I can say is, yes, the OSCE is once more in the situation that it will have to look critically at what it has in terms of instruments, ways and means of action, mechanisms and so on, and then see what can be done.
You said there is no trust between our participating States. In the year of Helsinki +40, is that not a devastating remark?
Yes it is, but it is true. The Helsinki +40 commemorative event in Helsinki in July was not a meeting to express joy and happiness. For me, it was first and foremost a meeting to remind everybody that the Helsinki principles are still valid and should be observed, respected and implemented. That is how we marked the 40th anniversary. I am not saying there is absolutely no trust. But to be very frank, if I compare the discussions at Permanent Council meetings when I came four years ago to what has been going on in the Hofburg during the past year, these are like discussions on two different planets. It is still the same format, the same conference room, but the statements, the political level of discussions, the kinds of accusations are unbelievable compared to what was the case four years ago. We are in the midst of one of the most serious political security crises in the OSCE area after the Cold War.
What is the place for OSCE strategies like reconciliation in such a situation, when principles are being blatantly violated?
First of all, we need time and patience. The time for reconciliation and mediation will come. Historically, it needs time. In the case of Poland, it took us 20 years after the end of the Cold War before we started real reconciliation between the Russian Federation and Poland, in the Polish-Russian Group for Difficult Matters. Professors Adam Rotfeld and Anatoly Torkunov did an excellent job and achieved impressive results. But it took 20 years to start the process and now once more for obvious political reasons it seems to be gone with the wind.
We can hardly expect people now in Ukraine to be in the mood for reconciliation. The first thing is: they need to accept reality. When I say “accept reality”, I do not mean accepting that there was an aggression, or however you would like to call it. You have to accept where you are. And then, what do you want to do? Do you want to share with everybody else your unhappiness? OK, your call. Do you want others to help you reestablish yourself? Your call, but then, things are a bit different. At the same time, Moscow has to accept responsibility for its actions in the context of this crisis.
Regarding the bigger vision, building an OSCE security community, I would like to remind you of the dictum: “der Weg ist das Ziel” - the journey is the goal. With political processes, it’s not so much the outcome, the document that will be signed, that matters. It’s the fact that people sit and talk, try to explain things to one another. We should not be frustrated by the fact that we are not in a position to sign a new pan-European security treaty in one, two or even five years’ time. The way the Ukrainian crisis is being discussed is disruptive politically, but still, it is a good thing that we are having these meetings, that there is this discussion. It will take time, but at least there is a channel of exchange – even if it is only exchange of accusations, although we should gradually move in another direction. It is the process that is important, not just the outcome.
You say that it is important for the process to keep going. But doesn’t there seem to be a tendency away from multilateralism, back to the idea of just a small group of states deciding about the resolution of conflicts?
To answer this question I will have to become a bit philosophical. What is the OSCE? First of all it is a certain set of values, norms and principles. I don’t mean documents; I mean a certain axiology. When you say, “OSCE”, you should be able to say “what I mean is also a certain attitude, certain values, not just deriving from documents.”
What else is the OSCE? It is a collection of instruments or mechanisms, which the participating States may use or may not use. What’s going on now also shows in what kind of mood our participating States are. They are using existing channels of communication for very tough discussions.
At the same time, and this, if you will, is the third level of the OSCE, it is we, the people, the officials, bureaucrats and experts who are working for the Organization. But what can we do? We can only do what the collective will of the participating States is prepared to accept and would like us to do.
At this stage, participating States are simply not in the mood – and there are some reasons for that – to use some of the instruments that we keep available for them: mediation, reconciliation, confidence building measures, a variety of possible missions and modes of reporting. This is all available. We are the guardians of the instruments and the mechanisms, but we cannot impose them.
Our duty is to make sure that those instruments that are not being used now – like reconciliation, like mediation, like the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration in Geneva, which in fact has never been used – are functional, in the hope and the understanding that the time will come when the dust will settle a little and they can be used.
How do we make sure in the OSCE that when we focus so much on Ukraine now that we don’t neglect other places where there are protracted conflicts or where there may not be conflicts now but something could happen in two or three years?
You almost answered your own question. If we forget about other crises, they will remind us, and it will happen soon. It is inevitable that we focus on Ukraine, given the nature of this crisis and given the scale of our involvement. At the same time, it is up to the Chairmanship to make sure that there is a political message: “while we are focusing operationally on Ukraine, we are not forgetting about other things.”
We also have to accept a certain political reality, whether we like it or not – and I may be politically incorrect here: there are obvious implications of, let’s call it, to be politically correct, the “the crisis in and around Ukraine”, for other conflict areas. Settlement in Transniestria is unthinkable without clarity on the future of Donbas. Given the states involved in this crisis, we can hardly expect any progress in the South Caucasus now. There are political, strategic, even geo-political implications. So we will not be able to forget about other conflicts, and yes, in a sense, while changing gears, we have to make sure that we are not in neutral position, that we still can drive, even if we need to go more slowly than we used to.
How do you define the task of conflict prevention?
The entire OSCE is about conflict prevention. Even our fundamental documents – starting with the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter for Europe, this is all conflict prevention: rules, norms and standards agreed to make it easier for participating States to co-operate, with a view to preventing conflicts.
The Conflict Prevention Centre (CPC) is just a part of it; it is one specialized structure within the OSCE dealing with certain conceptual and operational elements of this core mission. Other departments in the Secretariat, the Transnational Threats Department, for instance, are also doing conflict prevention, but in some well-defined, specific areas, like police and borders.
Nowadays, conflict prevention is understood in the broader context of the entire conflict cycle – not just prevention as such, but also early warning, crisis management and post-conflict rehabilitation.
Do you have a vision for the future of the Conflict Prevention Centre?
My personal view is that there are two best-case scenarios, not just for the CPC as a structure but for conflict prevention as the OSCE’s core mission. One possibility is to unify conflict prevention in the Secretariat – because some people may say that the current structure is fragmented. Actually, whether or not structures work depends on us, the people. I have never had problems with colleagues from the Transnational Threats Department working on borders and police, for instance. If we have good relations and do not hide things from one another, then what does it matter if we sit side by side in the same corridor or on different floors? I am not structurally minded.
The other possibility – and this is my personal dream – is that the Conflict Prevention Centre, in order to be able to do really effective and efficient conflict prevention, early warning, crisis management and conflict resolution, should become an independent institution, like the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) or the High Commissioner on National Minorities. Why? Here, in the Secretariat, the entire conflict prevention mission is very close to the consensus rule and to the stormy political waters of every Permanent Council meeting. If the CPC were like ODIHR, bound, of course, by certain provisions, rules, mandates, and so on, but then acting operationally, on its own, within these limits, maybe we would have had 2,000 monitors by now, and 1,000 unmanned aerial vehicles flying in Ukraine. I’m not talking about acting against the will of the participating States, just further away from political stormy waters, and further away from some tendencies for micromanagement.
This idea is not directed against the Secretariat. Personally, I see the OSCE as having two basic missions. One is conflict prevention; the other is helping participating States to conduct a security dialogue. What’s wrong with having the CPC as an independent institution and the Secretariat serving the security dialogue function, helping participating States to negotiate agreements on the issues that are of concern to them?
This new CPC – if anybody would ever consider that – would be more a conflict cycle institution, a crisis management institution. It could comprise the current CPC, the Transnational Threats Department and a few other current structures. One could add all the checks and balances required so that participating States could be assured that there would be no actions undertaken against their will.
It may sound like science fiction, and it is something that participating States would never agree to during a stable time. If there is a possibility of considering something like this, then only in times of deep crisis, when one is emerging from the crisis and looking for innovative solutions. You need stormy waters to think about something like this. So the time is now [laughs].
What are your best and worst memories of the past four years?
My best memory is the people. I have been extremely lucky to have the kind of staff with whom I’ve been working. Not only are they dedicated professionals, but basically, all they needed was a bit of guidance, a sense of direction, and trust from the management – I have never done any kind of micromanagement. But it’s not just the staff of the CPC. It’s also friends from other parts of the Secretariat, from Conference Services – I know those people from the 1990s, also from delegations. Probably, the biggest group of friends I have ever had on this earth is in Vienna. I spent altogether 17 years of my life here – and I still don’t speak German, quite an achievement. So this is the best memory.
My worst? To be very frank, my worst memory is also of people, but people of a different kind. Sadly, not just in the OSCE, not just in Vienna, you can still meet people who, whenever you ask them about anything – a problem, an issue – they will start saying, “well, this is a very important issue, which has so many implications for another aspect of the problem, and I would encourage you to look at this in its entirety.” Sorry – you still meet people like that. When I do, I kind of keep quiet – I really have to control myself.