On 3-4 September, the Swiss Chairpersonship of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) organized a conference in Bern on the significance of the OSCE’s founding legacy and its future.
After its heyday in the early 1990s and promising plans for the creation of a common security architecture in Europe, the OSCE was widely recognized as having contributed to ending the Cold War and thus to the reunification of Europe.
However, during the first decades of the 21st century the OSCE has been increasingly marginalized by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This means that NATO has more or less replaced OSCE as the main guarantor of security in Europe.
The status of OSCE has also been deeply affected by the ongoing US/NATO proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, which is rooted in that country’s internal divisions and in NATO’s dominance and expansion in Europe.
On the occasion of the recent conference in Bern, the Helsinki+50 Peace Initiative issued an appeal to the organizers of the conference. We recommended convening a new OSCE Summit of Heads of State and Government for the purpose of establishing a common peace architecture.
We also recommended applying a set of five criteria for true peacebuilding negotiations, namely, that such negotiations must be serial/structured (that is, successive congresses under an institutional roof), multilateral, inclusive, legal/legitimate and emancipatory/empowering. Historically, these criteria have proven to be the most successful, for instance 1648 (Westphalia), 1815 (Vienna), and 1975 (Helsinki).
From these criteria the appealing acronym SMILE emerges as a formula for sustainable peace solutions.
Apparently, however, the tradition of major peace congresses has now been lost. Also, there is today a lack of willingness to build peace jointly – that is, multilaterally and inclusively.
On the other hand, the press statement from the conference in Bern gives reason for hope. Notably, the statement places emphasis on multilateral and inclusive negotiations between the parties to the conflict in the Ukraine war, within the structure of the OSCE, as a possible way out of the war. Thus, the OSCE criteria are integrated into the SMILE concept and confirm it — a sign that international politics and civil-society initiatives are jointly capable of contributing decisively to ending even the most difficult international conflicts.
Attached is the OSCE press statement, which we likewise very much welcome.
Hans Hedrich, September 4, 2026
PRESS RELEASE Source: OSCE Chairpersonship, OSCE Secretariat
From Geneva to Helsinki and beyond: significance of the OSCE’s founding legacy and its future at the heart of the third Chair conference
BERN, 3 September 2026 – Fifty-one years after the Helsinki Final Act was adopted, the Swiss OSCE Chairpersonship and Dodis Research centre (Swiss Diplomatic Documents) brought together political leaders, diplomats, historians and experts in Bern to reflect on the origins of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) and the relevance of its founding principles for European security today and tomorrow.
The high-level segment of the Chairpersonship’s conference, “From Geneva to Helsinki: Founding Process and Core Purpose of the OSCE”, was held today at the University of Bern as part of the conference of the International Committee of Editors of Diplomatic Documents (ICEDD). The event is the third of four thematic conferences organized by the Swiss OSCE Chairpersonship in 2026.
The discussions, drawing on the expertise of the Dodis research centre, revisited the diplomatic process that led from the preparatory consultations in Geneva to the adoption of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975. The conference explored the broader significance of the Helsinki Final Act, principles its enduring continued relevance of the OSCE’s comprehensive approach to security. Against the backdrop of today’s security challenges, participants also looked beyond the historical record, exploring how the Helsinki legacy continues to influence diplomacy, dialogue and co-operation in a changing European security landscape.
OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Federal Councillor Ignazio Cassis, underlined that the history of the Helsinki Process offers lessons that remain highly relevant in today’s fractured geopolitical environment: ”Co-operation does not require agreement. It requires the willingness to keep talking despite disagreement. The Helsinki Final Act was not signed between friends. It was signed between adversaries. We do not know what European security will look like in five or ten years. Nor do we know when the next opportunity for diplomacy will come. But we can make sure that, when it comes, there is still a table around which everyone can sit. That is not nostalgia for Helsinki. It is preparation for what comes next”.
OSCE Secretary General Feridun H. Sinirlioğlu highlighted the continued importance of the Organization’s founding purpose: “Globally and in Europe, we have reached once again a critical juncture. The geopolitical landscape has changed. But one thing has not changed, and will not change. Geography. That is why, fifty years ago, countries recognized the need for an inclusive security platform – the OSCE. We still need that platform today, and we will need it for the years to come,” said OSCE Secretary General Feridun H. Sinirlioğlu.
Prof. Dr. Sacha Zala, Director of Dodis, presented the largest joint edition of diplomatic documents on the origins of the CSCE
/OSCE, bringing together primary sources from 15 countries and two international organizations.
This forward-looking dimension is central to the Swiss Chairpersonship, which has placed at the heart of its priorities the Helsinki Principles for lasting peace, inclusive multilateral diplomacy, anticipating technologies, democracy and human rights, as well as the OSCE’s ability to act.
Links
helsinkiplus50.org 
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