At the start of the new year, members of the European Leadership Network’s senior and younger-generation leaders’ networks offer their perspectives on their defining issue or policy trend to watch in 2026.
Any monitoring mission deployed to observe an end to the hostilities in Ukraine is likely to incorporate a range of remote-sensing technologies to support its verification activities. Drawing on insights from the Norwegian research institute NORSAR’s real-time monitoring of the 2022 Ukraine conflict, this policy brief by Ben D.E. Dando, Kjølv Egeland, and Sebastian Schutte, finds that scientific advances and a growing availability of relevant data have made ‘seismo-acoustic’ analysis a cost-effective means of complementing, backing up, and in some cases replacing other ceasefire monitoring technologies.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the OSCE has faced a deep crisis. Russia and Belarus have violated key norms of the 1975 Helsinki Final Act, undermining the OSCE’s role in crisis management. Alexander Graef argues that breaking the impasse requires decisive political leadership and multi-level diplomacy. He also argues that growing military activities in Europe highlight the need for military-to-military contacts for managing escalation risks, in which the OSCE can facilitate necessary dialogues and support future monitoring activities as it has in the past.
For nearly 50 years, the OSCE has developed a toolbox to address security challenges across wider Europe. However, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has dismantled Europe’s existing security architecture, rendering many OSCE tools ineffective. Former ELN Policy Fellow Katia Glod argues that in spite of this, a resurgence of political commitment could reinvigorate the OSCE’s tools, enabling them to be adapted to current challenges. This report recommends concrete actions to be undertaken by the OSCE to improve the efficacy of its toolbox.
As European leaders prepare a peace plan for Ukraine, ELN Policy and Impact Director Jane Kinninmont and Dr Loïc Simonet argue that they should draw on the OSCE, as the organisation that helped manage risks and offer communication channels during the Cold War, and which includes Russia along with Ukraine.
From 11-12 November 2024, the European Leadership Network (ELN), as a Core Partner to the Expert Network on the OSCE, brought eight members of the ELN’s contingent of OSCE Expert Network to Vienna for their Annual Meeting.