As part of a tribute to Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who died in custody last February, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have unanimously adopted a Resolution on Wednesday 17 April calling for a series of radical measures to counter what is called Vladimir Putin’s “totalitarian regime”, while refusing to recognise him as the legitimate President of Russia.
Based on this principle, it is urging the international community to cease all contact with Putin, “except for humanitarian purposes or the pursuit of peace”.
Based on a report by the Lithuanian Emanuelis Zingeris (EPP/CD), the Resolution calls on the European Union and other Council of Europe member states to punish those responsible for the persecution, mistreatment and death of Alexei Navalny (see the “Navalny list”).
It is also asking the EU and the G7 to step up sanctions against Russia by imposing sanctions on the Moscow Stock Exchange and Rosatom, while lowering the ceiling on oil prices in order to reduce Russia’s revenues.
In this text, the Assembly has reiterated its demand for the rapid transfer of what amounts to more than 300 billion in frozen Russian assets into a fund intended to provide compensation for the victims of the armed aggression against Ukraine.
With regard to this last point, Pap Ndiaye, France’s Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe, told Agence Europe that this fund would be a complement to the Register of War Damage in Ukraine based in The Hague “in ultra-secure facilities” in order to “protect it from Russian hackers”; he also added that this is now operational (with more than 1,400 claims to date).
To set up this fund, the ambassador noted that “a whole legal process will be required” to avoid “setting the international financial system on fire” as well as for ensuring that this money is used for reconstruction.
“It’s important to have a notion of time in this matter” he concluded: “it is the first time that a mechanism of this kind has been put in place, but it is a moral and intellectual imperative”.
“We need to start thinking about the post-Putin era”.
“In 1942, during the Nazi era, no one would have believed that compensation for the war damages would have been possible”.
Link to the Resolution: https://aeur.eu/f/bvh (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)