Summit meetings

Helsinki Summit 1975

The Helsinki Summit held on 1 August 1975 was the culmination of three stages of negotiations by participating States, which lasted for three years. Stage III marked the conclusion of the formative stages of the CSCE.

Date:: 1 August 1975
Location:: Helsinki
Series:: Summit meetings
Source:: Summits / Ministerial Councils

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Summit

The 1st CSCE Summit

The CSCECSCE
Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe formally opened in Helsinki on 3 July 1973. In this first stage, which lasted until 7 July, 35 foreign ministers from all of Europe (except Albania), the USA and Canada adopted the Final Recommendations on the Helsinki Consultations.

On 18 September 1973, the “Helsinki process” moved into Stage II, a substantive working phase that took place in Geneva until 21 July 1975. During these negotiations, experts from the 35 participating States engaged in the first ever multilateral East-West negotiation process.

At the end of this process stood the CSCE Final Act, or Helsinki Accords, signed on the last day of the Helsinki Summit (Stage III) on 1 August 1975. The Final Act outlines ten fundamental principles, also known as the ‘Decalogue’.

The participating States divided the CSCE's areas of activity into three dimensions, or ‘baskets’. The first dimension covers political and military aspects of security. The second dimension comprises economic and environmental aspects of security, including economic development, science, technology and environmental protection. The third dimension involves human aspects of security.

The signing of the Helsinki Final Act

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East meets West: US President Gerald Ford and USSR General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev (with translator Viktor Sukhodrev at his ear) at Helsinki 1975. Flanking them are Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (l) and Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko (r).

© Gerald R. Ford Library Photo details
The Helsinki Final Act negotiators, the Foreign Ministers of the CSCE participating States, at the first Helsinki meeting in 1973.

© Bundesarchiv Photo details
Leonid Brezhnev, General-Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR, signing the Final Act, with Turkey's Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel to the left, Helsinki, 1 August 1975.

© AKG Photo Berlin Photo details
L-r: Helmut Schmidt, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Erich Honecker, First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Gerald Ford President of the United States, Bruno Kreisky, Chancellor of Austria, Helsinki, 1 August 1975.

© Bundesarchiv/Horst Sturm Photo details
Erich Honecker (l) of the German Democratic Republic and Helmut Schmidt of the Federal Republic of Germany at the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe held in Helsinki in 1975.

© Bundesarchiv Photo details

The Helsinki process

Stage I

The first stage of the Helsinki negotiations, which would eventually lead to the signing of the Helsinki Final Act in 1975, took place between 3 and 7 July 1973.

Stage I of the Helsinki negotiations

Stage II

The substantive working phase of the Helsinki negotiations took place in Geneva from 18 September 1973 to 21 July 1975.

Stage II of the Helsinki negotiations

Stage III

At the end of the summit on 1 August 1975, 35 participating States signed the Final Act, or Helsinki Accords, which laid the foundations for the work of the CSCE/OSCE, outlining a number of politically binding commitments relating to politico-military, environmental and economic, and human aspects of security.

Helsinki Final Act

Decision / declaration