The 25th Winter Meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly should be a moment of celebration and reflection on past successes in advancing the organisation’s broader goals of comprehensive and collective security. Yet, much like the 50th anniversary of the organisation in 2025, it will be anything but. The OSCE continues to be in a deep crisis.

 

Triggered by the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, this is first and foremost a crisis of paralysis, with meaningful dialogue and decision-making among participating States in Vienna largely stalled. The OSCE continues to function operationally, with at least some meaningful and substantive business being conducted in the organisation’s specialised institutions – the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the High Commissioner on National Minorities (HCNM), and the Representative on Freedom of the Media – as well as in its eleven field operations in eastern and southeastern Europe and Central Asia.

 

The existing crisis of paralysis is further compounded by the wider crisis of multilateralism and the deliberate dismantling of the rules-based international order, which did not begin with, but has significantly accelerated since the return of Donald Trump to the White House 13 months ago. The implications for the OSCE became particularly evident at the Ministerial Council in Vienna on 4 December 2025, when a representative of the US State Department called for “a reduction of at least €15 million in the annual budget by December 2026”, a shift in priorities away from politically contentious issues, and renewed engagement with Russia. Implied, if not explicitly stated, was the threat of US withdrawal from the OSCE: “If the OSCE continues on its current path, the United States will continue to assess our participation and support.”^[1]

 

As with previous periods of institutional strain, the key question that arises from it is not new: can participating States reform the organisation and help it find a way back to being an effective contributor to security across its vast geographic area stretching from Vancouver to Vladivostok? And perhaps more importantly, should they?

 

The priorities of this year’s Swiss Chairpersonship under the theme “Dialogue – Trust – Security” certainly suggest that a serious attempt will be made. Key objectives include safeguarding the OSCE’s operational capacity (“preserve the basic instruments … and to ensure their financing”) and revitalising multilateral diplomacy (“foster an open dialogue on security”, “maintain channels of communication on security, including between States in conflict”).^[2]

 

Another priority – to work for lasting peace on the basis of the Helsinki principles (enshrined in the organisation’s 1975 founding act) – envisages that “the OSCE is mobilising its instruments across all three dimensions to support a just and lasting peace in Ukraine”. Not only does this naturally align with the very purpose of the organisation but it also could give the OSCE a new lease of life in light of recent developments in the war against Ukraine.

 

The prospect of elections, a referendum, and a possible peace deal could give the OSCE and its participating States an opportunity to bring to bear its experience and expertise in election observation, ceasefire monitoring, demining, on-the-ground mediation, and post-conflict institution building.

 

However, not all of the OSCE’s past experiences in these areas were stellar successes. Getting the organisation into a position where it could meaningfully contribute to a lasting peace in Ukraine will require pain-staking, detail-oriented work in the corridors of the OSCE secretariat and the Hofburg in Vienna, not the megaphone diplomacy that tends to take place in the meetings of the Permanent Council or the Forum for Security Cooperation.

 

For the UK, the OSCE – notwithstanding the organisation’s ongoing crisis – still represents an important forum to articulate and pursue its national interests. While just one among several minilateralisms that have recently emerged – including the ‘coalition of the willing’, the European Political Community, the Ukraine Defence Contact (or Ramstein) Group – it is unique in the sense that it is one of the few remaining fora where direct dialogue with Russia is not just possible but embedded in the organisation’s founding purpose.

 

Such dialogue must, however, serve a concrete purpose and it needs to be based on clear principles. As Chair of the Forum for Security Co-operation in the last trimester of 2026, and as a member of the Forum’s Troika in the preceding and subsequent trimesters, the UK is well positioned to support the Swiss Chairpersonship’s reform agenda and to contribute to restoring the OSCE’s operational effectiveness. This is further enhanced by the fact that the Head of the UK Delegation to the OSCE, Ambassador Neil Holland, will also continue in his role as Chair of the Security Committee, one of the informal subsidiary bodies of the Permanent Council, specifically charged with discussing politico-military issues and supporting the preparation of the Annual Security Review Conference, which provides participating States with an opportunity to discuss regional security issues in plenary form.

 

The UK’s long-standing experience in multilateral diplomacy, its role as one of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, and its still pivotal role at the nexus of Euro-Atlantic security create a unique opportunity for making a lasting contribution to making the OSCE relevant again as a forum for dialogue among all its participating States. This will not be easy and success will not be guaranteed, but it will be a worthwhile investment of UK

 

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the individual author and do not reflect the views of The Foreign Policy Centre.

 

 

Stefan Wolff is Professor of International Security in the Department of Political Science and International Studies, at the University of Birmingham. A political scientist by background, he specialises in the management of contemporary security challenges, especially in the prevention and settlement of ethnic conflicts, in post-conflict state-building in deeply divided and war-torn societies, and in contemporary geopolitics and great-power rivalry. Wolff has extensive expertise in the post-Soviet space and has also worked on a wide range of other conflicts elsewhere, including in the Middle East and North Africa, in Central Asia, and in sub-Saharan Africa. Wolff holds degrees from the University of Leipzig (Erstes Staatsexamen), the University of Cambridge (M.Phil.), and the LSE (Ph.D.).

 

Image Credit: © OSCE

 

[1] United States Mission to the OSCE, “Plenary Statement 32nd OSCE Ministerial Council Vienna, Austria, December 4, 2025”, December 2025, https://www.osce.org/sites/default/files/documents/official_documents/2025/12/mcdel0056%20usa.pdf

[2] OSCE, Programme and priorities of Switzerland’s OSCE Chairpersonship 2026, https://www.osce.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/2026/01/OSCE2026_Broschuere_Faltkarte_EN_Web%20%282%29.pdf.