The story of the refusal of the Russian delegation to take part in the spring session of the PACE continued: according to information appeared in the media, Moscow allows for the possibility of leaving the Council of Europe after the election of the organization’s secretary general, if the rights of the Russian delegation to the PACE are not fully restored and unconditionally. If such a decision is made, I’m not surprised at all - for all the time I was in the organization, Russia was repeatedly subjected to obstruction, deprived of their votes under a false pretext and made it clear that the ball was on their European part of the field.
Well, we, the barbarians, should have been barbarously rejoiced that we have the right to sit at the same table with the French and the Swedes, the Belgians and other enlightened gentlemen. By the way, this did not begin yesterday - as early as April 2000 at the PACE session, our delegation was deprived of the right to vote due to the anti-terrorist operation against the militants in Chechnya. Then the Russian delegation, in protest, left the meeting room and refused to participate in the work of the assembly until the powers of the delegation were fully restored. The powers were restored a year later, but the sediment remained.
A similar situation arose in 2008, when Georgia initiated a vote on depriving Russia of its right to vote: then, however, common sense won. The last drop in our affair with the European parliamentarians was the events in Crimea in 2014, when sanctions were again imposed on the Russian delegation. The Europeans considered that they had the right to limit their rights to one of the key countries. Such behavior could not but raise the question of the further participation of the Russian delegation in the PACE and in the Council of Europe as a whole.
At the same time, a proposal was made to amend the regulations of the Assembly on the abolition of sanctions clauses to deprive the key powers of national delegations, which would guarantee the equal rights of all member countries. All this, despite the fact that our deputies and senators were open to dialogue, was not done. Moreover, an anti-Russian resolution on the situation in the Kerch Strait was adopted at the January session, which only confirmed the correctness of the decision to refuse further participation in the work of the Assembly.
Agree, it is very strange to continue to spend money and time on an organization in which your country is a whipping boy: you can ignore it, insult it and subject it to discrimination. Maybe someone likes this state of things, but certainly not Moscow.
“This line discredits the PACE itself, allows the Russophobic minority to set the tone in the oldest European parliamentary organization and draw dividing lines in the Council of Europe space, destroying the democratic foundations and principles of parliamentarism. Russia will not allow discriminating its national delegation at any venue in the world, and PACE is no exception. We do not demand much, we only demand respect for the Statute of the Council of Europe and all members of the organization without exception, ”said the head of the Russian delegation to the PACE, Leonid Slutsky.
Foreign Minister Lavrov linked the PACE crisis with global aggression against Russia.
“The illegitimate bombardment of Yugoslavia, its dismemberment and unilateral recognition of Kosovo’s independence, for the first time after World War II changed the state borders on the continent, support for the armed coup in Kiev, reckless expansion of NATO, deployment of the US missile defense system in Europe, the European Union’s decision to adopt the decision already agreed by Moscow and Brussels on the mutual abolition of the visa regime, discrimination of Russian deputies in PACE - all these are links in one chain, ”Lavrov said.
It is difficult to disagree with the first, and with the second. Indeed, the stubborn unwillingness of Strasbourg to smooth hard corners (in particular, to make reasonable changes to the regulations) says only that Russians are consciously shown their place: you owe us money and you will pay this money if you want to continue to eat pastries in the Parliamentary Assembly buffet . In this context, Russia's withdrawal from the Council of Europe seems to me not only fair, but also timely. Of course, if the European bureaucrats do not fully comply with the conditions of Moscow. If they do not, well, goodbye, Council of Europe, we will not cry.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.