OSCE limps through another year as Russia relents on veto

SKOPJE (Reuters) - The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) should continue to function for another year as frequent holdout Russia joined others on Friday in approving Malta as OSCE chair for 2024 and extending four senior officials in their positions.

The OSCE is the successor to a body set up during the Cold War for the east and west to engage with each other. In recent years, however, and especially since it invaded Ukraine, Russia has used what is effectively a veto each country has to block many key decisions, often crippling the organization.

Russia spent months preventing NATO member Estonia from becoming the next OSCE chair as originally planned. A last-minute deal for Malta to take over was reached this week and signed off on at Friday's meeting of foreign ministers and other officials from OSCE states hosted by current chair North Macedonia in its capital Skopje.

"Today is a success for the OSCE. In the current circumstances, finding common ground on any topic is a challenge and I will not pretend otherwise," Secretary-General Helga Schmid, one of four senior OSCE officials extended in their jobs days before their mandates expired, told a news conference.

The meeting was overshadowed by Ukraine's and the Baltic states' vehement objections to the presence of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Their foreign ministers refused to attend and urged others to do the same.

Some, like U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, attended meetings on the eve of the meeting but left before the meeting itself began. Many Western states are trying to keep the rights and security body alive and use it as a place to hold Russia to account for its actions in Ukraine and beyond.

While relenting on vetoes that could have brought the OSCE even closer to collapse, Russia showed no sign of warming to its critics among the OSCE's 56 other member states, particularly the United States.

At a news conference, Lavrov said Blinken had "fled" the meeting in what he called an act of "simple cowardice".

U.S. officials at the meeting, while pleased that European Union member state Malta will take over the annually rotating role of OSCE chair, kept the pressure on Moscow for having blocked Estonia and held up the decision for so long.

"This decision was taken at the very last minute, which should not be the case. We would like to remind one delegation of its commitment to appoint a chair as a rule two years before the chairmanship's term of office starts," U.S. ambassador to the OSCE Michael Carpenter said in a clear reference to Russia.

(Reporting by Fedja Grulovic; Additional reporting by Felix Light in Moscow; Writing by Francois Murphy)