ambassador rudolf v. perina - Association for Diplomatic Studies and ...

PERINA: This happened a little more gradually. The Europeans had long been pressing
for a permanent OSCE, and we went along gradually. We were still brought along
kicking and screaming on some issues. We were always arguing for the minimal amount
of institutionalization: the fewest meetings, the least bureaucracy and so on. I think
Washington figured “Look, we just won the Cold War. We don’t have to be worried
about competition to NATO.” I think also there was the beginning of finding a new role
for the OSCE. The CSCE, as such, had really become a Cold War institution, a tool that
the West used to advance human rights issues in the Soviet bloc. Now people started
thinking that an organization would be more useful as a tool for integrating Europe and
strengthening democracy in the newly-independent states. A more permanent,
empowered institution was necessary for that.
Q: You’re thinking of democratizing the Soviet Union?
PERINA: Well, all the successor states of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet Union. The former
at least had the structures of independent states but the latter didn’t even have that. The
OSCE came to be seen as an organization that could help build institutions, democracy,
civil society, civilian control of militaries, respect for human rights, all of the things that
the CSCE had advocated. So we started coming up with various mechanisms for this.
One was to establish OSCE missions in a number of these countries, missions that would
monitor human rights problems and minority problems, particularly in the countries that
had large ethnic minorities and potential for conflict, of which there were many. Another
task was to help organize elections and monitor elections in all of these countries. And of
course, there was the former Yugoslavia that had also splintered and the same forms of
assistance were required by the newly-created states there.
Q: But was there still concern about excess bureaucratization in this process?
PERINA: There was always such concern. The bad model was the UN. In Vienna there
was a big UN mission with all of the duty-free shops and fancy cafeterias and huge
bureaucracies and that was what people really wanted to avoid. But also the business of
passing resolutions that nobody paid attention to-- that was also something we wanted to
avoid. We wanted the OSCE to be lean, flexible and practical in its work. I think to a
large degree we succeeded. To this day, the OSCE is leaner than the UN or EU
bureaucracies. NATO is difficult to compare because of the military component.
Q: I’m always interested in French diplomacy. As things were changing, did the French
show any different face or not?
PERINA: A lot of that played out within the EU caucus and wasn’t always visible to us. I
think that French policy objectives remained unchanged in the sense of limiting U.S.
influence and strengthening European institutions. But it was harder for them to
implement this because the U.S. position had been so strengthened by the end of the Cold
War. We had a whole new set of allies within the OSCE in the Central European
countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary who saw us as their liberators from
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