This article focuses on the Central and Eastern European in the process of shaping their security relations. The aim of the paper is to present and analyze the evolution of security relations in the region under the aegis of the EU, NATO and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). The interplay of the institutions shows that the EU is not a single power in the European security system thus the maintenance of stable and peaceful relations depend mostly on cooperation between a number of institutions and groupings. The EU and NATO’ s role was central due to their policies of enlargement and the stabilization effects on third partner countries. The OSCE with its well promising position in Europe has been weaken due to decline of interests of major power states and its functions performed simultaneously by the EU and NATO. Both organizations have taken to a large extent the place of the OSCE.

The purpose of this article is to present the operational capabilities of the OSCE in regulating armed conflicts and their application in the former Eastern bloc countries. In order to show the role of the OSCE in the regulation of armed conflicts, OSCE operational capabilities have been structured in a conceptual grid including: OSCE regulatory tools – in the form of missions, field offices and field coordinators; regulatory mechanisms and emergency mechanisms applied in the light of the peaceful pathways of OSCE involvement in the regulatory process. The common feature of operation at each phase is the broadly understood maintenance of stability or achieving stability. There are armed conflicts against which the OSCE has selectively used regulatory activity, omitting certain phases of the conflict, and those against which the application of regulatory tools has not led to lasting stabilisation. The results presented in the paper confirm the correctness of considering the above theories against the background of the conflict cycle concept. Institutional and legal analysis and comparative analysis were used in this paper.