The end of the Cold War posed new challenges to the CSCE, with increasing intensities of ethnic conflict raging around the Yugoslav region. The European Community was struggling with uncertainty under a less-than-effective presidency, and a questionable state of unity following the Danish rejection of the Maastricht Treaty; thus, a need was felt for a US presence in Europe.
This record of the Helsinki Follow-Up meeting in 1992 shows that the even reaffirmed, but did not complete, the CSCE’s transition from process to structure. The network of CSCE bodies and work methods described in the beginning sections of the Helsinki Decisions was greatly developed and clarified from its Paris genesis. Some effort was also made to integrate existing structures and past practices. Notably, the CSCE took as its central concept for the future the US-proposed theme “managing change.” While the United States put this forward as a response to percieved European negativism and tendancy to paint the future in apocalyptic colors, requiring only conflict-orientated responses, it was also telling that the United States and others were ready to see the CSCE as a key instrument for the management of inevitable change, rather than looking past the CSCE in efforts to maintain the status quo.
