ABSTRACT
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the OSCE, is a concrete and modern expression of the notion of security, encompassing many dimensions political, diplomatic, military and humanitarian, all collected to make real the fundamental idea of conflict prevention. In 1966 the Soviet Union proposed the convening of a European Security Conference with the participation of all European States. In 1972 a basic agreement was reached between the two German States, through which East Germany gave its full recognition of West Germany while Bonn limited its recognition of East Germany to a "special State within the German nation". Two meetings to follow up the Conference on Security and Cooperation (CSCE), shaped in the Helsinki Conference, took place in Belgrade during 1977-1978 and in Madrid during 1980-1983. Finally, the concluding step in the German set of Treaties turned out to be the four-power deal about Berlin 1972.
