European Stability Pact (ESP) Pact on Stability in Europe
The European Stability Pact (ESP) Pact on Stability in Europe was signed at the closing conference held on the initiative of the European Union on 20-21 March 1995, attended by the 52 member states of OSCE. It was the first result of joint action in the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. The adopted document comprises three parts: 1) a political declaration setting out the principles of good neighbourly cooperation; 2) a list of almost 130 agreements signed between EU Member States and the 9 candidate countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia), as well as between candidate countries themselves and with some of their neighbours; and 3) a list of projects proposed in regional consultations (“round tables”) which the EU has funded as part of the PHARE programme. The European Stability Pact (ESP) Pact on Stability in Europe assigns the task of supervision of implementation to OSCE and provides for the activation of the so-called Stockholm Convention establishing conciliation and arbitration tribunals. It has served as a model for other similar “joint actions” in preventive diplomacy.
French Prime Minister Édouard Balladur presented his plan to stabilise the situation in Europe and create a “new equilibrium” at the Copenhagen session of the European Council in June 1993. According to the plan, the outstanding issues between the states that have concluded association agreements with the EU and their neighbours with particular emphasis on strengthening the inviolability of borders and ensuring the rights of national minorities were to be settled bilaterally either by concluding bilateral treaties or by the proposed method of dispute settlement. Bilateral legal agreements thus became part of a multilateral political commitment with an institutional mechanism to monitor them. The idea of the pact was formulated at the inaugural conference in Paris on 26-27 May 1994, at which the participating CSCE member states (OSCE) proposed new forms of cooperation for the bilateral settlement of disputes between neighbours. Two regional round tables were set up (Baltic States and Eastern and Central European countries). On 19 March 1995, before the start of the closing conference, the so-called Hungarian-Slovak Basic Treaty that is the Treaty on Good-neighbourly Relations and Friendly Cooperation between Hungary and the Slovak Republic was signed, followed by the signing of the Hungarian-Romanian Basic Treaty on 16 September 1996. The EU’s intention behind establishing the European Stability Pact – in the light of the experience of the Yugoslav Wars – was to stabilise the Central European region that was seeking to join the EU, using the instruments of preventive diplomacy. The experiences of the European Stability Pact have been useful in the South-Eastern European region. (See also: Stability Pact for South-East Europe.)