Strasbourg, 27/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - The Russian Federation scored a point on Tuesday 27 January in the showdown that has pitted it against the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) since last April.
Against the background of the Ukrainian crisis, PACE, at the time, voted to suspend the main rights of the Russian delegation at the assembly. This led to the immediate and heated departure of the delegation from this body. Since then, there has been no reduction in tension and at this time of renegotiating, from the attitude of the said powers at the beginning of the year, nothing would suggest any easy exit from the crisis. In this connection, a press briefing organised on Tuesday afternoon by Sergey Naryshkin, the president of the Duma and member of the Russian delegation at PACE, failed to bring any new elements to the fore.
Although the return of the Russians to the Parliament in Strasbourg will not occur until tomorrow evening, at the end of the vote on the report that the Austrian Socialist, Stefan Schennach, has drawn up on the question of sanctions within the context of the Committee on Rules of Procedure, it is already understood that this text will call for a softening in the line advocated by the Assembly, which will be to the liking of Sergey Naryshkin.
Alexey Pushkov (non-attached), head of the Russian delegation at PACE, explained “we are not satisfied because the Schennach report still plans sanctions and we are against this principle”. He added, however, that, “there are sanctions and there are sanctions. The suspension of our right to vote and take part in leading bodies, which we were informed of in April, were unacceptable. Those advocated in the Schennach report consist of suspending rights such as access to the editing of Parliamentary reports, participation in monitoring missions or even the right of representing the PACE at other international bodies. The tone has changed, the right to vote and right to participate in the work of the Bureau has been given back… In this sense, and if the text is voted on as it is, we will take part in the work of the assembly again this January”.
Alexey Pushkov considers that the vote obtained in the Committee on Rules of Procedure comes as no surprise, “we knew that four out of the five political groups would vote in this way”. Only the British head of the European Conservatives, Christopher Chope, opposed it. Pushkov added, “Classical Europe, namely, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Austria, as well as Cyprus, Hungary and Azerbaijan, is in favour of introducing a certain flexibility to the sanctions”.
Those advocating a less hard line approach against Russia want dialogue. This dialogue, however, is only possible within the body of PACE because it is only this kind of body that can bring together, at regular intervals, parliamentarians who would not be able to meet up anywhere else. The Russians and Ukrainians, in this specific case …
This argument of maintaining dialogue at any cost had already emerged during the April debates. Jean-Claude Mignon (EPP, France), previous president of PACE, said that at the time, “we know the moment the door has been shut but we never know when it will open again”. The Russians have effectively demonstrated that they will only open it again on certain conditions… At the end of the Committee on Rules of Procedure vote on the Schennach report, Jean-Claude Mignon said that he was “relieved” to be able to renew this renowned dialogue but was also resigned that “the virulence of the Russian colleagues sometimes made it impossible to defend such a position”.
The definitive PACE vote will take place tomorrow evening. In the meantime, amendments can be made to the Schennach report to modify its orientations. The affair therefore continues... (VL)