This time it is official. By decision of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe announced earlier this afternoon, the Russian Federation is excluded from the pan-European organisation as of Wednesday 16 March.
The Russian flag is no longer flying on the square in Strasbourg alongside those of the 46 other Council of Europe member states. It was removed in the process, as was the plaque that identified it with the date of Russian accession, 28 February 1996.
This decision of the Committee of Ministers was taken on the basis of Article 8 of the Statute of the Council of Europe adopted in 1949 in London. This means that it comes from the Organisation and not from the Russian Federation. This reference which is explicitly mentioned is important in relation to the fact that on Tuesday the Russian Federation had tried to short-circuit the expulsion procedure by announcing that it had notified the Secretary General of its voluntary departure from the Council of Europe under Article 7 of the Treaty (see EUROPE 12911/5).
The announcement, coming in the midst of an extraordinary debate in the parliamentary assembly which was being consulted by the Committee of Ministers on the current exclusion, surprised everyone, but did not dismay anyone. Shortly after 10 pm, a joint statement reaffirmed the determination of the Secretary General, the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly to proceed on the basis of Article 8 alone. The meeting of the Committee of Ministers, which brings together the permanent representatives of the foreign ministers of the member states and is the only body empowered to pronounce the official expulsion, was brought forward by one day, so that Russia was formally expelled from the Council of Europe on 16 March, not 17 March.
On the substance, and even if it is not specified in the official communication, the Permanent Representatives of the Member States to the Council of Europe considered that their triggering of Article 8 as early as 25 February, in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, rendered the Kremlin’s notification of exit to the Secretary General yesterday invalid. The Committee of Ministers had at that point suspended the Russian Federation’s rights of representation in all Council of Europe bodies (see EUROPE 12899/9), the next step under the same article was the exit of the sanctioned country.
This exit was itself to be done in two stages: a request for exit sent to Russia and the exit itself, set at the date decided by the Committee of Ministers alone. Yesterday’s Russian initiative saved it the trouble. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)