Assembly: MEPs call for Wagner to be designated by EU as a terrorist group

Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: Xose Bouzas / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP 20:12 p.m., May 09, 2023

The National Assembly on Tuesday unanimously adopted a resolution calling for the inclusion of the Russian paramilitary group Wagner, accused of abuses in Ukraine and Africa, on the European Union's list of terrorist organizations. The text, which is not binding, invites the French government "to mobilize diplomatically" so that the EU accedes to this request, which should make it possible to sanction Wagner's members and their supporters more effectively, notably financially.

>> READ ALSO – "Day of victory": the festivities of May 9 under high tension in Russia

A resolution co-signed by MEPs from different majority groups

Led by Renaissance MP Benjamin Haddad, the resolution was co-signed by MPs from the various groups of the majority, but also by elected representatives from the ranks of socialists, ecologists and LR. In particular, it targets the "numerous abuses against the civilian population" in Ukraine committed by this group of mercenaries, some of which could be qualified as "war crimes".

"The activity of the Wagner group meets the European definition of terrorism," pleaded Benjamin Haddad in the hemicycle, describing an "army of chaos" standing "alongside Putin's Russia", and whose members "sow instability and violence".

"No direct additional effect," says Colonna

The text quotes the German intelligence services, according to which Wagner "took part in the summary executions, mutilations and acts of torture committed against civilians in the Ukrainian locality of Butcha". In addition to Ukraine, the resolution also notes abuses in Syria and several African countries such as Mali and the Central African Republic.

The head of French diplomacy, Catherine Colonna, welcomed in the hemicycle the resolution of the deputies, after listing the many abuses attributed to the Wagner group and citing the sanctions already taken by the EU. "From a strictly legal point of view," the EU's terrorist characterization of the group would have "no direct additional effect," she said. But "we must not underestimate the symbolic importance of such a designation, nor the deterrent effect it could have vis-à-vis States that would be tempted by recourse" to Wagner, she said.

>> READ ALSO – War in Ukraine: according to journalist Renaud Girard "Bakhmout has become a little Verdun"

A forthcoming resolution on deportations of Ukrainian children

In mid-March, the Lithuanian Parliament already adopted a resolution stating that "Wagner is a terrorist organisation", drawing thanks from Kiev. At the end of March, French MPs showed their support for Ukraine by adopting a resolution recognizing as genocide the Holodomor, the famine caused in the early 1930s in Ukraine by the Soviet authorities.

Volodymyr Zelensky had thanked them for this gesture which responded to a strong expectation of Kiev about the painful memory of this deadly famine, revived by the Russian invasion of the country. Russia, for its part, responded by castigating an "anti-Russian zeal" of the French National Assembly.

Another resolution on the conflict in Ukraine could soon be discussed in the meeting. Led by Renaissance MP Pieyre-Alexandre Anglade, it aims to denounce the deportations of Ukrainian children by Russia, in a "deliberate strategy of destruction of Ukrainian national identity and society".