The European Union should take the reins for peacekeeping in its immediate vicinity, a senior diplomat has said.
Andrii Deshchytsia, Special Representative of the upcoming Ukrainian presidency of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), told a conference in Brussels that the EU should now use its influence to stabilise troublesome regions in south-east Europe.
Deshchytsia, who will head the Ukraine’s OSCE portfolio on protracted conflicts when the country takes over the year-long presidency of the organisation on 1 January, said that Ukraine will press ahead with ensuring stability in trouble spots in Europe, notably the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Transnistria conflict in Moldova, and the Georgia-Russia conflict over South Ossetia, but said that, with its new foreign policy arm, the European External Action Action Service (EEAS), the EU should be the honest broker in the region.
His words come on the day that the EU receives the Nobel peace prize, to much controversy, in Oslo, and a day before talks resume in Geneva on the Georgia-Russian conflict, the 22nd such round of talks.
He said that conflict resolution remains one of the principles of both the European Union and the OSCE. As upcoming president of the latter, he said his government was committed to ensuring peace in the immediate European neighbourhood. He said that Ukraine “fully supports existing frameworks” on peacekeeping efforts.
On Georgia, he said that Ukraine is “fully ware that the recipe for reducing this conflict is not easy”, but that international actors “must find new mechanisms and new approaches” to conflict resolution.
He said that, while it is true that it does take some time for structures to come into effect, the OSCE has provided the existing groundwork for resolution, if not he actual catalyst for change. “We really need the proactive role of the state to influence this process”, he said of hypothetical peace-keeping scenarios. “Who can play this role? The EU, the US, Russia? It very much depends on the ambitions and attitudes”.
“I think the EU is the most suitable for this role”, he said, adding that, based on its experiences, “the EU should take the lead in external crisis management, conflict resolution and post-conflict resolution”.
“I believe the experience of previous chairs of international organisations show that, we can, finally, find a solution to conflicts in these areas.”