The first day of the spring session at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe was marred with a scandal: PACE president, Spanish MEP Pedro Agramunt is forced to temporarily give up his presidency of the session. Moreover, extraordinary hearings concerning Agramunt’s trip to Syria began in Strasburg on April 25. As for Agramunt himself, he withheld detailed explanation, remarking that he admitted a change of his status at PACE. “On Friday I will go over to discussing my status,” said he. It looks that the deputies not only denounce Agramunt’s behavior, but also demand his resignation. In particular, this was proposed by Michele Nicoletti, representative of Italy. He was backed by Axel Fischer (Germany), chairman of the group of the European People’s Party and co-rapporteur on Ukraine, who emphasized his vote of no confidence in the PACE president.
Iryna Herashchenko, first vice speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, writes on her Facebook page that Agramunt must resign on his own. “The goal of Ukraine’s delegation is not fighting a Spanish senator, whatever his name might be. We oppose any attempts by the Russian Federation to exercise remote control over PACE, ruin this institution, and discredit the Assembly by destroying its principles and ideals. This has been our consistent position, but we were not always heard and were dismissed as overly emotional. However, truth will always out. A pity that we were not heard when Russians and their mercenaries killed, and continue to kill, Ukrainians; meanwhile, some PACE members allowed themselves to visit the occupied Crimea. Our goal is to protect international institutions from discrediting and disruption and advocate their principles. I have been following PACE activities for 20 years now, first as a political correspondent, and later as a politician. The Assembly has never known such a deep political crisis as now, thanks to its very own president, an open friend of Russians. It is us, Ukrainian delegates, who stirred and brought up this problem and stressed the intolerability of hushing his stand up,” said Herashchenko.
When this issue went to press, nothing was yet known about the results of the session. It cannot be ruled out that Agramunt might decide to resign as late as Friday. The Day’s sources explain this by the fact that Agramunt wants to stay till weekend, as the king of Spain is to speak to the PACE on Thursday.
