European security body OSCE said Wednesday its monitors have not been invited to the U.S. midterm elections in November and called the unprecedented decision “regrettable”. “These will be the first U.S. federal elections since the OSCE began observing in the country for which the OSCE has not received an invitation,” the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights said in a press release. It said the decision was “not in line with the commitments undertaken by all OSCE participating states”. The U.S. is an OSCE member. “After more than two decades in which the United States has welcomed OSCE observers to its federal elections, this decision represents a significant departure from an established democratic practice,” the OSCE parliamentary assembly president Pere Joan Pons said. “I deeply regret the decision,” he added. Since 2002, the OSCE has observed 12 federal elections in the United States, including six midterm elections. Founded in 1975 to ease tensions between the East and the West during the Cold War, the Vienna-based OSCE counts 57 members from Europe, central Asia and North America. It observes elections and has dispatched monitoring missions to conflict zones. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, critical of how the OSCE handles its mission, has urged the OSCE to downsize its budget.
