The OSCE after the Kyiv Ministerial

'Today, the OSCE is not the organization over which foreign ministers are racking their brains when they wake up early in the morning.' This was how Irish Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore characterized the state of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) at the end of Ireland’s presidency in 2012. A year later, however, the OSCE for once finds itself in the headlines. Just a few days before a routine meeting of OSCE foreign ministers in Kyiv, the Ukrainian government - which holds the 2013 OSCE presidency - decided to move the country closer to Russia by breaking off trade negotiations with the European Union. In the run-up to the meeting, police violence against peaceful protesters and the biggest street demonstrations since the 2004 'Orange Revolution' dominated the scene in Kyiv.