Foreign Minister Valtonen: Finland Ready to ‘Roll Up Its Sleeves’ as Country Assumes OSCE Chair

Finland’s Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen presented the country’s program and priorities for its 2025 OSCE Chairmanship during an address in Vienna on Thursday.

Valtonen marked the occasion by recalling this year’s 50th anniversary of the Helsinki Final Act, the founding document of the OSCE.

“The most important element of the spirit of Helsinki is the belief that states can resolve their differences through diplomacy instead of war,” she said and added: “Russia is violating all of the Helsinki Principles, the inviolability of frontiers, territorial integrity, peaceful settlement of disputes and other key values. Russia violates the principles and commitments it has negotiated and signed up to itself.”

During her speech, the ten principles of the Helsinki Final Act were displayed on the walls of the large meeting hall in the Hofburg, Vienna.

Plans for a major summit canceled

Former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö had previously proposed a major OSCE summit in Helsinki to commemorate the 50th anniversary in 2025, but plans were scrapped following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Finland’s subsequent NATO membership. Instead, a more modest commemorative event will take place in Helsinki on July 31 and August 1.

The Helsinki Final Act was signed in Helsinki on August 1, 1975, after several years of negotiations. It marked an important moment during the Cold War as it helped to improve relations between the Communist bloc and the West. The Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) was the only platform for dialogue between East and West during the Cold War. The non-binding agreement included commitments to respect human rights, promote economic cooperation, and enhance security in Europe.

“Supporting Ukraine’s territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence is at the heart of the OSCE’s work and our chairpersonship,” Valtonen emphasized. Earlier this month, Valtonen made her first visit as OSCE Chair-in-Office to Ukraine and Moldova to highlight the importance of peace and safety in these countries and throughout the OSCE region.

During her visit, Valtonen engaged with several Ukrainian leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, and Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk.

In her address in Vienna, she called on Russia to “immediately and unconditionally” release the three OSCE officials who were detained in 2022 by Russian proxies in Donetsk and Luhansk.

The detained OSCE officials—Vadym Golda, Maxim Petrov, and Dmytro Shabanov—were apprehended in April 2022 while serving with the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine. In September 2022, Petrov and Shabanov were sentenced to 13 years in prison.

The OSCE has strongly condemned their imprisonment, asserting that they were fulfilling official duties as mandated by all 57 OSCE participating states.

Valtonen outlined the Finnish Chair’s program, which she said is built on three guiding principles: Respect, Respond, and Prepare.

She stressed the necessity of upholding the global security order based on international law, the UN Charter, and multilateralism, asserting that the Helsinki Final Act and the 1990 Charter of Paris “support and strengthen” this order.

“With respect to responding to today’s challenges, Ukraine is fighting to defend not only its independence and peaceful future, but also the jointly agreed security order based on international law,” she said, adding that Finland would keep the support for Ukraine “at the heart” of the OSCE’s work.

What future role for the OSCE?

Valtonen said that preparing the OSCE for the future would be “the most challenging task.”

“During 2025, we stand ready to roll up our sleeves,” she emphasized, adding that Finland wanted to “safeguard the OSCE’s operational capacity and role as a forum for political dialogue.”

To facilitate this, Finland will initiate discussions at the ambassadorial level in Vienna regarding the OSCE’s future. The outcomes of these discussions will be reported to the OSCE Ministerial Council by year’s end, she said.

Additionally, Finland plans to establish a so-called Helsinki Plus 50 fund in collaboration with interested participating states and the OSCE Secretariat to enhance the use of voluntary funding for the organization, which has not had an approved budget since 2021, Valtonen said.

In a one-on-one interview with SHR Monitor on Thursday, Valtonen said that she hoped for peace in Ukraine. “Without peace in Ukraine, there is no peace, security and stability in Europe,” she said.

She added that the OSCE is ready to support potential peace negotiations but conceded that it is too early to say what specific role the OSCE could take on in the future.

The OSCE Chair rotates annually and the function of OSCE Chair-in-Office is held by the respective Minister of Foreign Affairs. The OSCE Chair is primarily responsible for guiding negotiations among the 57 OSCE participating states and helping them achieve consensus. The foreign minister of the country at the helm of the OSCE is a troubleshooter who travels to crisis hotspots in the OSCE region, including Ukraine, the Caucasus and South Eastern Europe.

The Chair is also responsible for brokering agreement on the budget, making key appointments, chairing the weekly Permanent Council and hosting other meetings.

Finland will hold the position until December 31, 2025, after which Switzerland will take over. Finland last held the OSCE Chair in 2008.