Opening of the session of the Parliamentary Assembly under high tension, debates announced until midnight... Monday 24 June will remain in the annals of the Council of Europe and sets the tone for a crucial week when parliamentarians will have to adopt - or not - a text allowing the Russian Federation to rejoin the ranks of the plenary, after 5 years of empty chair policy. At the time of writing, discussions were still ongoing.
But if the vote, scheduled for the night of 24 to 25 June, turns out to be positive, the Russian delegation could participate in the election of the new Secretary General of the Council of Europe, scheduled for Wednesday.
On the Russian side, the composition of the delegation has been ready since last week, but it will only be communicated to the PACE secretariat if the vote is positive and if it allows two things: first, the presentation of the credentials of a national delegation during the year - in this case in June, and not in January as provided for in the Regulation - and second, the announcement of a new sanctions procedure that prevents PACE from acting alone, as it had done in 2014, without coordination with the other CoE statutory body, namely the Committee of Ministers.
On Monday, in the Chamber, the balance of power seemed to be in favour of this report presented by the Belgian Petra De Sutter, Chair of the Rules Committee. But the heated debates that began as soon as the agenda of the week was adopted and continued in the afternoon, when the text was examined, promise suspense until the end of the night.
The Ukrainian parliamentarians are firing on all cylinders - including at the procedural level - to oppose and have tabled 226 amendments alone. They are not alone... Georgia, Poland, Armenia, the Baltic States and some British elected officials are also protesting against a return of the Russian delegation, which they present as a pure and simple abdication in the face of financial blackmail imposed by a country that has suspended its contribution to the CoE budget since June 2017.
In addition to the violation of international borders with the annexation of Crimea in the hemicycle, there are reports of Malaysia Airlines flight 17, shot down in 2014 in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, the capture of 24 Ukrainian sailors and even the 1930s and Munich. "Churchill would be horrified by what we are being asked to approve today!", exclaimed British Conservative Sir Roger Gale.
Defending the values of democracy, the Rule of law and human rights or maintaining at all costs its pan-European dimension as a platform for dialogue, PACE's dilemma remains the same as in 2014. PACE will have to decide by this night vote, which will determine whether or not a Russian delegation returns, which is feared to include elected representatives from Crimea and/or names on the European Union's black list. Which will certainly provoke a new outcry. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)