The following document was brought to the attention of the Summit by the Chairman, Prime Minister of Portugal H.E. Antonio Guterres, at the request of the Prime Minister of Belgium, H.E. Jean-Luc Dehaene, in his capacity as Chairman of the CFE Joint Consultative Group.
DOCUMENT ADOPTED BY THE STATES PARTIES TO THE TREATY ON CONVENTIONAL ARMED FORCES IN EUROPE ON THE SCOPE AND PARAMETERS OF THE PROCESS COMMISSIONED IN PARAGRAPH 19 OF THE FINAL DOCUMENT OF THE FIRST CFE TREATY REVIEW CONFERENCE
1 December 1996
I. INTRODUCTION
1. The States Parties have defined the following scope and parameters for the process commissioned in paragraph 19 of the Final Document of the First CFE Treaty Review Conference.
II. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
2. The States Parties intend to improve the operation of the Treaty in a changing environment and, through that, the security of each State Party, irrespective of whether it belongs to a politico-military alliance. The character of this process should be such as to permit the Treaty to sustain its key role in the European security architecture, in conditions existing and foreseen.
3. The process should strengthen the Treaty’s system of limitations, verification and information exchange. It should promote the Treaty’s objectives and enhance its viability and effectiveness as the cornerstone of European security, introducing such new elements and making such adaptations, revisions or adjustments to existing elements as may be agreed to be necessary.
4. The process should preserve and strengthen overall and zonal stability and continue to prevent destabilizing accumulations of forces anywhere within the Treaty’s area of application.
5. The process should further develop and consolidate the emerging new co-operative pattern of relationships between States Parties, based on mutual confidence, transparency, stability and predictability. It will aim to promote equally the security of all CFE States Parties. Acting within the context of the Treaty, States Parties will address new security risks and challenges through binding mechanisms, while taking into account the legitimate security interests of each State Party.
III. PRINCIPLES
6. The following principles will guide the process:
- arms control obligations, freely entered into, must be fully met;
- the integrity of the Treaty and its associated Documents must be preserved, that is to say a common commitment to the Treaty’s objectives, achievements and efficient functioning;
- the results of the process must be internally consistent, coherent and an integrated whole;
- the States Parties will avoid a wholesale renegotiation of the Treaty, adopting specific adaptations for specific purposes;
- the process must be consistent with the OSCE’s concept of comprehensive, indivisible and co-operative security, while bearing in mind States Parties’ other security arrangements and obligations, their inherent right to choose or change security arrangements, the legitimate security interests of other States Parties, and the fundamental right of each State Party to protect its national security individually;
- the existing Treaty and its associated Documents must remain fully in force and be implemented in good faith until such measures and adaptations as may be decided upon through this process have themselves come into operation;
- the States Parties will maintain, individually or in association with others, only such military capabilities as are commensurate with individual or collective legitimate security needs, taking into account their obligations under international law;
- the process should not result in any adverse effect on the legitimate security interests of any CFE State Party or other OSCE participating State;
- the process should recognize the importance of the CFE Treaty’s adaptation for:
- the broader OSCE security context, in particular the ongoing dialogue in the Forum for Security Co-operation (FSC);
- the work on a common and comprehensive security model for the twenty-first century;
- separate regional arms control arrangements and negotiations, both existing and as they occur, will be taken into account.
IV. SCOPE
7. To meet the aims and objectives set out in Section II, and committed to the Principles recorded in Section III of this Document, the States Parties will consider and elaborate, as appropriate, specific measures and adaptations to the Treaty.
8. The scope of this process will be consistent with the original CFE mandate, taking account of developments since Treaty signature, and with agreements reached at the First CFE Treaty Review Conference, and will retain:
- all existing categories of Treaty-Limited Equipment (TLE) established by the Treaty and will not result in an increase in total numbers of TLE within the Treaty’s area of application;
- all the scope and detail of the information and verification arrangements established by the Treaty;
- the area of application established by the Treaty.
9. Specific aspects of this process will involve, inter alia, consideration of the following:
- evolution of the group structure of the Treaty, as well as elaboration of provisions addressing participation of States Parties in the Treaty other than as members of a group;
- the functioning of the Treaty’s system of limitations and its individual elements, that is:
- development of the Treaty’s system of maximum levels for holdings, including the possibility to establish a system of national limits for TLE;
- in this context the development of the redistribution mechanisms in Article VII;
- the zonal provisions in Article IV of the Treaty, preserving the principle of zonal limitations, so that no destabilizing accumulations of forces should occur;
- the provisions in Article IV of the Treaty limiting aggregate numbers for a group of States Parties, preserving the principle that no destabilizing accumulations of forces should occur;
- the Treaty’s provisions in relation to stationing forces;
- Article XIV and related provisions on Verification, the Protocol on Notification and Exchange of Information and the possibility of promoting further co-operation in the spheres of Information Exchange and Verification;
- the Treaty’s provisions on designated permanent storage sites (DPSS);
- the possibility of accession to the Treaty by individual States who might request it, and related modalities;
- means to assure the full functioning of the Treaty in cases of crisis and conflict;
- the possibility of incorporating provisions designed to facilitate the involvement and co-operation of States Parties in peacekeeping operations conducted under the mandate of the United Nations or the OSCE;
- the possibility of extending the Treaty’s coverage so as to include new, or expanded, categories of conventional armaments and equipment;
- provisions on temporary deployments.
10. Further measures and adaptations, additional to those listed in paragraph 9 above, may be taken under consideration as part of this process as it evolves.
V. TIMETABLE, MODALITIES AND MISCELLANEOUS
11. The States Parties have decided that:
- in order to permit the next phase of this process to commence promptly in 1997, in accordance with the scope and parameters defined in Sections II-IV above, the Joint Consultative Group (JCG), in Vienna, in parallel with its ongoing tasks, will take responsibility for these negotiations when it resumes work in January 1997;
- they will work in good faith with the aim of completing these negotiations as expeditiously as those conducted under the original Treaty mandate;
- they will consider a report on results achieved at the time of the OSCE Ministerial Meeting in Copenhagen;
- during these negotiations, the Chairman of the JCG should, on a frequent and regular basis, at the FSC inform all other OSCE participating States of the work done and progress made; and that States Parties should exchange views with other OSCE participating States and take into consideration the views expressed by the latter concerning their own security.
12. They also recall that:
- the JCG should, in parallel with these negotiations, intensively continue efforts directed at resolving the implementation issues contained in the Review Conference Final Document, recognizing that such efforts will contribute substantially to the success of the negotiating process;
- the existence of this negotiating process will not prevent the JCG from adopting concurrently additional measures for enhancing the operational functioning of the current Treaty;
VI. UNDERPINNING THE PROCESS
13. Building on the achievements of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, States Parties commit themselves to exercise restraint during the period of negotiations as foreseen in the document in relation to the current postures and capabilities of their conventional armed forces - in particular with respect to their levels of forces and deployments - in the Treaty’s area of application, in order to avoid that developments in the security situation in Europe would diminish the security of any State Party. This commitment is without prejudice to the outcome of the negotiations, or to voluntary decisions by the individual States Parties to reduce their force levels or deployments, or to their legitimate security interests.