There is tension in the air a few days before the annual meeting of the Committee of Ministers (CM) of the Council of Europe (CoE), which will be held in Helsinki on 16 and 17 May. Admittedly, the stakes are high, since the Strasbourg-based international organisation and the Russian Federation could define a way out of the crisis at the meeting. Will a Ruxit - which would be devastating for both parties - be avoided?
The crisis dates back to the annexation of Crimea in March 2014. Refusing to be satisfied with a critical resolution, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) had then voted to suspend the voting rights of the 18 Russian representatives. The Russian delegation immediately and dramatically departed for Moscow, which practices the ‘empty chair’ policy, and Russia reduced its financial contribution to the CoE budget in 2017, going so far as to a fully suspend the payment of this contribution in 2018 (see EUROPE 12176/23).
The gulf has continued to widen, plunging the institution into not only an existential crisis -should dialogue be given priority or should upholding rule of law be emphasised politically? -but also a financial one, since redundancies among staff are now being discussed.
With just over a month to go before the election (scheduled for 25 June) of a new CoE secretary-general (see EUROPE 12234/25 and 12223/33), the political crisis is intensifying.
“Even if Russia were to rejoin PACE next January at the opening of the 2020 session, it would be difficult for it to feel connected to a secretary-general whom it would not have helped elect”, a diplomatic source pointed out.
A last-chance meeting, so to speak, is therefore going to be held in Helsinki against the backdrop of the presidency of the Committee of Ministers being passed from the Finnish to the French. Both have worked together on a file that fundamentally raises the question regarding the respective prerogatives of the CoE’s two statutory institutions, namely the CM and PACE.
Does the latter have decision-making power? Russia contests this, and a legal opinion requested in October 2018 by Thorbjørn Jagland, the current secretary-general, seems to confirm this. A report by Chairperson of the Committee on Rules of Procedure Petra De Sutter (Greens, Belgium; member of the Socialist Group at PACE) had tried - in October 2018 - to lay the foundation for a more defined procedure. But it was not able to be passed by a chamber that was too deeply divided to reach a two-thirds majority (see EUROPE 12114/22).
However, an important step was taken last April with the adoption of the report by Tiny Kox (European United Left, Netherlands). Adopted in the context of an emergency debate, it advocates a “joint reaction procedure” when a State fails to fulfil its statutory obligations. The CM, PACE, and secretary-general would be involved. For the time being, this is the most encouraging sign in resolving the crisis.
France, which will assume the rotating presidency of the CM from 17 May to 27 November, is working to define a formula that would allow the next secretary-general to be elected by a full chamber. It would then be up to that person to essentially settle the dispute between Moscow and Strasbourg.
Nothing is certain, but the fact that Russia allowed Commissioner for Human Rights Dunja Mijatović to visit this year is seen as a positive sign. As a reminder, Ms Mijatović was elected in January 2018, thus in the absence of Russian parliamentarians. Another encouraging sign: Moscow has announced that it has frozen amounts corresponding to the amounts that were not paid into the CoE budget. Russia will release them immediately if a satisfactory way out of the crisis is found. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)