Dear all,
We are more than pleased to announce the continuation of our virtual Hangouts@OpenTTN and to invite you to our second hangout session on Thursday, March, 31st 2022, 20:00 - 21:15 CET (19:00 - 20:15 UK time) on: The slow death of multilateralism? The future of the OSCE in an insecure and uncooperative world.
The Russian invasion into Ukraine has been going on for more than a month. Undoubtedly, the world since February 24th has been a different one than before. Some experts are even putting forth the idea that we are at the beginning of a new cold war era in Europe and beyond. No one could fathom a war breaking out in a globalized Europe where almost every country is tightly connected through multilateral organisations.
One of these organisations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), was initially founded to bridge the gap between East and West during the Cold War and guarantee a peaceful co-existence in an area spanning from Vancouver to Vladivostok. Originating from the signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975, the OSCE has since the 1990s been a key multilateral player in wider Europe and successfully made efforts to guarantee security and cooperation among its 57 participating States.
However, since the early 2010s, the raison d’être of the organisation has been put to question again and again. Its relatively unmoving character and slow decision-making process has hindered the OSCE to address the fluctuating security order since 2014 and beyond, despite playing an important negotiating role in several ongoing European conflicts (e.g., Donbas, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria). In 2025, the OSCE will celebrate its 50th anniversary and is expected to undergo important reforms to stay not only relevant but continue to guarantee the security and safety of over 1.3 billion people.
After a short introduction to the work of the OSCE, we will kick-off the event with an input by two Ponto members, Jelena Jevtić, currently at OTH Regensburg working on Strategic Intelligence Analysis, and Raul Rios, who is working for the UN's Office of Counter-Terrorism in Budapest.
Afterwards, there will be space to dive deeper into your own areas of interest in connection with security, multilateralism, and the raison d’être of international organisations.
If you want to participate in this hangout, please register under this link:
https://forms.gle/g32gooxh7caTU1xK6
Should you have any questions, please reach out to Max (maximilian.rau@pontothinktank.org).
All the best and looking forward to meeting you soon,
Max