This is a common space. EU podcast.

From the city of the Hague, welcome to Global Europe Unpacked, a podcast about Europe's engagement with its neighborhood and a wider world.

The beauty of a comprehensive approach to security is that there's something in it for everybody.

Hello and welcome to Global Europe Unpacked, the podcast that looks at global trends affecting

the European continent and the growing ambition for the EU to become a global or geopolitical

power.

I'm your host, Will Murray, and in today's episode we're going to be looking at the Organization

for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or the OSCE.

Multilateralism is at the heart of the EU's value system, and the OSCE is the quintessential

multilateral security organisation on the European continent, to which all 27 EU states are members.

We're going to be talking about what this organisation is and why it's important for European security,

why it's considered to have been in crisis recently, and what could be done to ensure that it's as effective

as possible going forward? To answer some of these questions, I'll be speaking to Dr. Walter

Kemp, a senior fellow at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime, who has previously

held a number of senior positions in the OSCE.

Without further adieu, let's see what he has to say.

Walter, thanks a lot for joining me today. It's good to be speaking to you again.

Thanks, Will. Nice to be on your show.

So, Walter, could you start by giving us a bit of background on where the OSCE came from and its history?

Because I think it's particularly relevant when considering what the organization is today. Sure. So the OSCE stands for Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

So to unpack that a little bit, I could focus on the four letters of OSCE. At the beginning in the

1970s, there was a conference for security and cooperation in Europe. And this was a time when there

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