An important step in resolving the crisis between Russia and the Council of Europe (CoE) was taken on Friday 17 May, at the annual meeting of Europe’s Committee of Ministers in Helsinki (see EUROPE 12254/21).
A declaration was adopted - and even acclaimed - on this occasion, previously supported by the CoE representatives of 39 of the organization's 47 member countries.
Ukraine then refused to make concessions “without compensation” from Russia for the lifting of sanctions related to the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Georgia, Poland, Armenia, the Baltic States had joined this position, as had the United Kingdom, which, in addition to the annexation of Crimea, also denounced the poisoning of a former Russian double agent and his daughter with Novichok. This attempted execution on British soil had been ordered by the Kremlin, an investigation had concluded.
Fearing that Russia would leave the organisation next summer (see EUROPE 12114/22), Paris and Berlin manoeuvred to formulate a solution acceptable to all, supported by the Finnish Presidency of the Committee of Ministers (CM) which handed over the Presidency to France on Friday.
In concrete terms, the declaration confirms the Russian challenge to the sanction imposed on it by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). The statutes adopted when the CoE was created did not give it the right to do so, Moscow had repeated over and over again. The adopted text confirms that only the CM, the executive body of the CoE, has this power, but proposes a new procedure involving the CoE, the PACE and the Secretary General.
The declaration also recalls the “fundamental obligations” of Member States, including the one to “pay their contribution to the ordinary budget of the Council of Europe”. This is a very clear call for payment of the sums due by Russia, which has stopped its payments since June 2017 after deserting PACE benches as soon as its voting rights were suspended in 2014.
Among the reactions, one can note the absence of the Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs who, as early as Thursday, had announced that he would not go to Helsinki to attend the formalisation of the declaration. “This is not diplomacy, it is capitulation”, said Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine's permanent representative to the CoE.
The head of Russian diplomacy, Sergei Lavrov, on the other hand, welcomed the fact that “this declaration paves the way for a resolution to the current crisis”. “The ball is in PACE's court”, he added.
The assembly had already voted in favour of a report favourable to the solution adopted in the CM Declaration. The procedure still needs to be accelerated to allow the Russian delegation to participate in the vote of a new Secretary General scheduled for next 24 June (see EUROPE 12234/25). A meeting of the PACE Bureau will take place next week. The Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs will be associated with it. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)