ORGANIZATION FOR DEMOCRACY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT—GUAM: EALITY, POSSIBILITIES, AND PROSPECTS

Abstract

After the Kiev summit of the Organization’s member states during Ukraine’s Presidency GUAM became institutionalized and cooperation within it systemized. The GUAM Baku summit was instrumental in establishing the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development—GUAM. It was important both for further institutionalizing cooperation in the GUAM format and for demonstrating the Organization’s possibilities to its foreign partners.

The summit was an important event that helped GUAM to assume a dignified place in the inter-national and regional cooperation system, become firmly established in the region, and raise its ap-peal. The main political document of the Baku summit, the Baku declaration “GUAM: Bringing Continents Together,” presented a political assessment of cooperation in the GUAM format during the time that had passed since the Kiev summit and designated the strategic development goals to be pursued in the future.
 The Baku declaration “GUAM: Bringing Continents Together” confirmed the resolve to expand cooperation in order to develop democratic values, the rule of law, respect of human rights and basic freedoms, achievement of sustainable socioeconomic development, and maintenance of security and stability in the GUAM region. It also strove to enhance GUAM’s regional significance and position by consolidating common interests and intensifying branch cooperation. The Declaration underlined the need to fully activate the socioeconomic, transport, energy, scientific and technical, humanitarian, legislative, and law-enforcement potential of the member states in order to create a common space of integration and security in the GUAM region. This was the pivotal idea. All the other documents signed at the Baku summit served to promote it. The Program of Chairmanship of the Azerbaijan Republic approved at the summit by the presidents of the GUAM member states was also oriented toward embodying this idea.

The presidents also adopted the GUAM Strategy of Sectoral Cooperation. This is a new development factor in our organization reflecting the willingness of our countries not only to interact, but also to further elaborate joint approaches in all areas of cooperation, which is also a practical step toward realizing the idea of a common integration and security space. The activity of the GUAM working groups was also oriented toward implementing the above ideas.

Consequently, GUAM’s efforts and achievements will depend on the specific content of the working groups’ agendas and on the quality of the ideas being considered and of the documents being approved. This process should generate new proposals for drawing up a legal basis of multilateral cooperation and coming to terms on the implementation of regional projects, including with respect to infrastructure. This will be the best material expression of the member states’ cooperation in the GUAM format, and also provide foreign partners with additional encouragement to accelerate cooperation with our organization.

In other words, the ideas should be realistic, the plans feasible, and the work results tangible. We should also exert efforts to increase the awareness of the positive influence of cooperation within GUAM among our country’s businessmen and ordinary citizens.

Based on these tasks and goals set forth in the documents of the Baku summit and in the speeches of the delegation heads, the Secretariat, together with the chairman and other GUAM member states, concentrated efforts on improving the functioning of the entire GUAM cooperation system, raising the quality of the dialog and degree of political interaction, ensuring organized establishment of the Secretariat, and encouraging the generation of project ideas in the GUAM format and their realization. These efforts also went to enhancing the Organization’s public image and appeal and increasing public awareness about its statutory cooperation tasks, goals, and priorities.