Of the OSCE field operations in transition countries

Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) currently has 18 field operations in transition countries throughout Southeastern and Eastern Europe, Caucasus and Central Asia. These operations employ around 3000 staff members and spend 80 percent of OSCE annual budget. Effectiveness of these operations in performing their tasks in all phases of conflict cycle depends on consensus between Great Powers; they also employ an informal decision-making process to supplement the consensus in order to be flexible in responding to changes in the situation. Today, those operations are challenged by shifts in global power relations, and their future depends on the outcomes of the current security dialogue which takes place in the OSCE. That dialogue is also an opportunity for transition countries (including Serbia) to benefit from the OSCE field operations reform, in a way that the operations would now become more able to address the real security problems of these countries.