Debated for more than half a day in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the report aimed at strengthening the procedure for suspending the credentials – including the right to vote – of a national delegation was finally referred to the Committee on Rules of Procedure on Tuesday 9 October.
"It was the only way for the text to survive", said Petra De Sutter (Greens/Belgium), rapporteur of the text and also chair of the Committee on Rules of Procedure. Realising that "discussion on the substance was impossible", but that her report had become "the perfect alibi" for a tearing apart of the Chamber against a backdrop of tensions between Russia and the Council of Europe (CoE), she understood that it would not obtain the two-thirds majority necessary for its adoption and preferred to withdraw it rather than have it definitively rejected.
The text advocated a change from a simple majority, hitherto sufficient for the suspension of a delegation's credentials, to a two-thirds majority defined on the basis of a quorum. It was adopted in committee on the basis of a consensus of all political groups.
Petra De Sutter therefore thought that her report had a good chance of being supported by the two-thirds majority required in the Chamber, but she became disappointed as "passionate" exchanges progressed, much more political than technical.
The background is the tensions growing between the Council of Europe and Russia since April 2014. The Russian delegation was then deprived of its right to vote in response to the annexation of Crimea and slammed the door of the Chamber and did not return. Three years later the financial response fell, when Moscow abruptly suspended its contribution to the CoE's annual budget (see EUROPE 11821).
All this weighed like an "elephant in the room" according to Petra De Sutter. The latter is waiting for the Russian question to be examined in January 2019 before submitting its report. It will then be known whether or not Moscow presents the credentials of a delegation for the year 2019 and, if so, whether PACE ratifies them.
"The masks will have been lifted, and we can discuss the background without some people thinking they have to show their teeth", said the rapporteur.
The De Sutter report is also confronted with "another elephant" which challenges it in an even more fundamental way, namely a legal opinion prepared for the CoE Committee of Ministers (CM) composed of ambassadors from the 47 member states.
Requested by the CoE Secretary General and published last week, he simply denies PACE the right to suspend the credentials of a national delegation and reserves the right to the Committee of Ministers to retaliate against a member state that has failed to fulfil its obligations.
Very badly received by a PACE which claims 30 years of practice in this sense without anyone having been moved, this report still makes people talk about it. It even portends, Petra De Sutter fears, an institutional war within the Council of Europe.
"It will be necessary to get out of this unhealthy situation resulting from the Russian crisis, to create a joint working group and perhaps even a system of arbitration between the two statutory bodies of the Council of Europe", she said. To stop the self-destruction, in short.
An urgent debate is being held on Thursday 11 October on the institutional crisis at the Council of Europe. It may enable PACE to identify first avenues. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)