Looking back at Helsinki – forty years later

Résumé

A historical reading of the “Helsinki process” during and after the Cold War pretends to summarize the steps of the multilateral diplomacy of the détente, since the origin of the most important Pan-European Conference of the contemporary time, analyzing some limitations that did not allow it implement its legacy in a most complete way in the early XXI century. While emphasizing the relevance of the principles of European security, established in the Helsinki Final Act, the article points to the difference between the exercise the diplomacy of détente in Europe, in the context of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the international politics in a post-Cold War Europe, characterized by multidimensional dynamic changes and by the competition among international institutions, while resulting in a weakening of the state of European security.