A police cordon at Moscow's Meshchansky court, where the cases of former YUKOS CEO Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Group Menatep head Platon Lebedev, and former "Volna" company general director Andrei Kraynov were heard in 2005.
Photo: Alexey Kudenko
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Diplomatic Missilemen
// The Price of Russian Victories in Strasbourg
Every session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has something that ties it in with the previous sessions, something infallibly recognizable as the "signature of Strasbourg." That notwithstanding, however, every session of PACE has its own flavor and its own intrigues. The recent discussion has noticeably been not just a selection of resolutions: an unusually wide array of questions has been tossed into the pot, including energy security, the status of Kosovo, reform of the European Court of Human Rights, and threats to the freedom of the press. Add to the mix the questions that the winter session of PACE wanted to review but that ultimately didn't make it onto the agenda – Russian-Georgian relations and the spy affair, allegations against Russian scientists – and you'll see that this time the discussion cannot help but encroach on global economics and geopolitics, exceeding the boundaries of the problems that PACE traditionally considers. However, that is not what's most important. As a case study of the Assembly's winter session, it is most interesting to consider the general mechanism of the interaction between Moscow and Strasbourg.
The discussion at the current session evinces a curious and long-standing pattern that is only now emerging clearly: the Russian team at PACE is obliged to act as some kind of diplomatic "anti-ballistic missile defense system." The task: at any cost, take out hostile or unknown (i.e., potentially dangerous) objects, which are understood to be resolutions and questions, launched by an enemy – either the West or a country that used to be "ours" that is now cozying up to West. The number of missiles intercepted then serves as a measure of Russian success in Strasbourg. Of course, some rockets make it through to hit the target, which is clear from the fact that almost all of the resolutions on the agenda are "anti-Russian." But the less of those, the better.
How does that look in practice? Our team averted an unpleasant discussion of the Russian-Georgian topic – 1:0 in our favor. The spy question also went by the wayside – 2:0, and we're breathing easier now. The resolution on energy security snuck through our defenses, but they somehow managed to have the word "Russia" removed from a recommendation in the text that called on Russia to allow third parties access to its energy network, thus rendering the recommendation nonsensical. 3:1, our lead. From the resolution on Kosovo, we managed to exclude a recommendation to grant the region independence – yet another success. But it's too early to relax. New targets are on the horizon: a resolution concerning "threats to the lives and freedom of journalists," as well as the question of the ill-favored 14th protocol of reform in the European Court of Human Rights. Of the 46 members of the Council of Europe, Russia is the only country that has not ratified the protocol. But why should we ratify it when the quintessence of the decisions of the European Court is politicization and double standards? Our experienced diplomatic missilemen are going to have to work overtime on this one, but there's no doubt that they will bring the game to a victorious finish, thus justifying their trip to Strasbourg. The only question is how the score will stand in the end.
By the next session, though, everything will fall back into the same old patterns, and the rockets again will fly on the same trajectories. And it's possible that there will be more of them. That's the price of Russian victories in Strasbourg.
Sergey Strokan
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 26, 2007
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