Former Prime Minister Alfred Sant said that today, the spirit of Helsinki needs to be revived, adapted to current circumstances, and framed into a new cooperation and security project for a Europe that fully includes Russia. Dr.Sant was addressing a Conference marking the 40 anniversary of the Helsinki Conference at the Hotel Phoenicia, Floriana. Dr Sant said that over the years, the first outcome of the Helsinki process helped to undermine Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union itself. It also laid the margins within which the European Union developed its soft power, which eventually became quasi-hegemonic.

Dr Sant said that at a first phase, this was instrumental in the immediate period post the Soviet collapse, to cushion its effects that could have triggered war.However the EU’s soft power also undermined the other Helsinki conclusion, allowing for a Russian diplomatic space in Europe. This has led among others to new conflicts as demonstrated by the crisis in the Ukraine.

Dr Sant said that the Helsinki process forty years ago drew up a new diplomatic architecture for the whole of Europe. In first place, human rights, cultural and social issues in one sovereign state became a matter of legitimate interest to other sovereign states, even justifying outside intervention a state’s internal affairs. Secondly, the existence of the material interests of Russia, formerly the USSR, inside the European space was given full legitimacy and recognition, for the first time in European history.