Charter of Paris for a New Europe
The 34-state CSCE Paris Summit opens
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Paris, 19 November 1990
Heads of state or government from all 34 participating states of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe assembled in Paris on 19 November 1990 for a summit running through the 21st.
On the first morning, the 22 NATO and Warsaw Pact countries signed the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe at the Élysée Palace and issued a joint declaration affirming that Europe’s era of division and confrontation was over.
The Charter came on the 21st
The summit culminated two days later with the Charter of Paris for a New Europe, whose signatories committed themselves to democracy, human rights and the rule of law.
The Charter also began converting the CSCE from a conference process into a standing institution, adding recurring summits and ministerial councils and three permanent bodies: a Secretariat, an Office for Free Elections and a Conflict Prevention Centre.
Counting, and filing
The listing describes “Canada, the United States, and 32 European states.” The correct figure is 34 participating states in total, of which the CFE signatories were a 22-state subset.
The body was still called the CSCE in 1990; it was renamed the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe in 1995.
The corpus also routes this entry to a page about Canada’s Leader of the Official Opposition, which has no connection to the summit.
Sources
Researched 24 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited
How this was checked
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What the sources leave uncertain
- November 19 is the opening date and the date of the CFE signing. The Charter of Paris itself was signed on November 21, so accounts should present this as a three-day summit rather than compress every action into November 19.