Ukraine: Russia begins the procedure for leaving the Council of Europe

Europe 1 with AFP 9:09 p.m., March 15, 2022

Russia decided on Tuesday to leave the Council of Europe, accusing NATO and the European Union of having made it an instrument at the service of "their military-political and economic expansion in the East", on the twentieth day of the invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces.

"The notification of the withdrawal of the Russian Federation from the Organization" was delivered on Tuesday to its secretary general Marija Pejcinovic Buric, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

A notification well received by Marija Pejcinovic Buric, confirmed Daniel Höltgen, spokesperson for the Council of Europe.

Only Belarus was not among them

A watchdog of human rights in Europe, this one, created in 1949, brought together until then almost all the States of the continent, 47 in total, including Russia since 1996, and Ukraine, since 1995. Only Belarus, ally of Moscow, was not one of them.

"Those who force us to take this step will bear all the responsibility for the destruction of the common humanitarian and legal space on the continent and the consequences for the Council of Europe itself, which, without Russia, will lose its status pan-European", resumed the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

End of ECHR protection for Russians

The main concrete consequence of this withdrawal is that the 145 million Russians will no longer be able to benefit from the protection of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the judicial arm of the Council of Europe, the last resort against arbitrariness. courts in their country.

Moscow is indeed the main provider of cases before the ECHR: more than 24% of the cases currently pending before the judicial arm of the Council concern Russia, with certain emblematic cases, such as that of the opponent Alexeï Navalny.

In its press release, Russian diplomacy rightly accuses the institutions of the Council of Europe, including the ECHR, of having been "systematically used to exert pressure on Russia and interfere in its internal affairs".

Moscow already suspended since the start of the war

Moscow had already been suspended from the Council the day after the invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

And several Russian officials had hinted at the end of last week that Moscow was preparing to leave the Council of Europe definitively, but no formal request had been made until then.

Thus, the Parliamentary Assembly of the institution (PACE) was still meeting on Monday and Tuesday to decide on the possible exclusion of Russia from the organization, in view of the "serious violations of the Statute of the Council of Europe" committed with the invasion of Ukraine.

The Council of Europe deprived of 7% of its annual budget

Russia preferred to take the lead and announce itself that it was slamming the door, before suffering the humiliation of an exclusion.

As a non-negligible consequence, this departure of Russia will deprive the Council of Europe of nearly 7% of its annual budget, approximately 500 million euros.

"This announcement is cynical on the part of Russia," reacted Lisa Yasko, a member of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE.

"They think they can save their reputation, but the whole world knows the crimes they are committing. It's so funny that this announcement comes hours before Russia is banned by the organization anyway. This should have happened before, but there is no tool powerful enough in this organization to stop Russia's crimes. We are living through a dramatic page in our history and my country is paying a very high price," he said. she adds.

The second time such a scenario occurs

"It's a crude maneuver to try to minimize what we are voting on," agreed Nicole Trisse, head of the French delegation and vice-president of PACE.

"All the same, 46 nations are there, debating and there is unanimity in favor of the exclusion of Russia: it has never happened, it is unprecedented since the creation of the Council of Europe ."

This is the second time that the institution has faced such a scenario: Greece had indeed proceeded in the same way, leaving the Council before being expelled from it in 1969 under the dictatorial regime of the colonels.

She had rejoined him in 1974.

Already in 2014, Russian parliamentarians sitting in PACE were deprived of their voting rights after the annexation of Crimea by Russia.

After five years of intense tension, the Russian delegation was able to rejoin PACE in 2019, to the chagrin of Ukrainian parliamentarians.

The Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers is due to meet on Wednesday to decide on the situation.