President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Rene van der Linden attends a European Council forum in Moscow on October 18, 2006.
Photo: Ilya Pitalev
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Ukrainian Maidan Travels to Strasbourg
// Ukrainian Crisis Crowds Dissenters Out of PACE Session
The spring session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) began yesterday in Strasbourg, where the main topic on the agenda was the crisis in Ukraine. Meanwhile, it came as a major surprise to the Russian delegation that the European parliament did not intend to discuss the police response to the Dissenters' Marches that took place in Moscow and St. Petersburg over the weekend. The decision to spend extra time discussing the Ukrainian crisis and no time at all on the events in Russia was clearly a conciliatory move aimed at not irritating Russia right before the possible ratification of the 14th protocol of the European Convention on Reform of the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights. Kommersant correspondent Nargiz Asadova has the details from Strasbourg.
The first signal that the Ukrainian crisis was high on the agenda came at the Strasbourg airport, where the entire Ukrainian delegation arrived en masse – usually only half of the delegates attend any one session. The deputies from the Ukrainian Rada were clearly looking at the PACE session as an opportunity to bring the parliamentary debate to a whole new level. "PACE should support the position that Yushchenko's decree was entirely unconstitutional," said Party of the Regions political council member Oleksandr Stoyan to journalists.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych has also been invited to Strasbourg to discuss the situation in Ukraine, and an urgent debate on the topic has been scheduled for Thursday. According to Russian PACE delegation head Konstantin Kosachyov, concern about the situation in Ukraine is so intense that two hours have been allocated for the debate instead of the usual hour and a half. On the basis of the discussion, a resolution authored by the Monitoring Committee will be adopted. "It is difficult to say right now what the contents of the resolution will be. But my feeling is that, given the general orientation of the members of the bureau, the basic idea of the text is going to be something along the lines of the Assembly should not directly interfere in the political crisis in Ukraine and should insist that all questions be resolved on the basis of the Ukrainian constitution," he told Kommersant.
A source in the Ukrainian delegation told Kommersant that Ukrainian Foreign Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk and Rada Speaker Oleksandr Moroz also intend to be in Strasbourg for the debate on Thursday. The press secretary for PACE President Rene van der Linden noted that Mr. Moroz will not be allowed to speak at the debate, because he is not a member of the European Parliament, but Mr. Yatsenyuk is expected to address the delegates in his capacity as Ukrainian foreign minister.
Another crucial matter for the Council of Europe is Russia's ratification of the14th protocol of the European Convention on Reform of the European Court of Human Rights. Russia is the only one of the Council's 46 member-states that has not ratified the document, which is holding up important reforms of the court in Strasbourg. "There are fears that, if Russia does not succeed in ratifying the protocol before June 30, it will then be necessary to let the procedure of reelections of judges to the European Court slide, with all of the accompanying consequences," said Mr. Kosachyov. "However, here there is an understanding that the Assembly should not pressure Russia on this matter." He added that a representative from the Russian State Duma will be meeting with the PACE Legal Committee in Paris on May 15 to discuss technical and legal aspects of the ratification of the 14th protocol.
Romanian delegate Georgy Frunda told Kommersant that the question of the disbanding of the Dissenters' Marches in Moscow and St. Petersburg had also come up in planning meetings, but it was decided not to bring up the issue of the arrests of opposition members and journalists in Russia during the PACE session, for fear of irritating the Russian authorities at a crucial moment in the possible ratification of the 14th protocol.
Nevertheless, Mr. van der Linden had his say about the Dissenters' March during a recent press conference: "It is unacceptable. No member of the Council of Europe is permitted to use disproportionate force to suppress a demonstration."
Nargiz Asadova
All the Article in Russian as of Apr. 17, 2007
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