Just re-elected PACE president for another year’s term, Pedro Agramunt, said recently that it was necessary to lift all political sanctions off the Russian delegation. According to Agramunt, the Russians must be present at the Assembly, their rights fully restored. He adduced quite strange arguments for the presence of the Russian delegation, including the statement that the current annexation gives no grounds for preserving the sanction restrictions. “Neither me nor the Assembly accept annexation. It is unacceptable. But the Russian delegation has to be here. My standpoint is as follows: denouncing Russia’s actions in Ukraine is one thing, but we have already denounced them. It does not mean that we must cease the dialog. The Council of Europe cannot stand on both feet without cooperation with the Russian Federation,” said Agramunt as he explained his position to Ukrainian and Russian journalists. All of this suggests nothing else but appeasing the aggressor.
We would like to remind our readers that back in April 2014 PACE imposed sanctions on the Russian Federation by depriving its delegation of vote. Because of this, the Russians stopped their participation in the work of PACE. In 2016-17 Russia never sent the list of members of its delegation to Strasbourg, thus formally avoiding the prolongation of the sanctions.
COMMENTARY
Hanna HOPKO, chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Foreign Affairs:
“Agramunt’s statement is a personal business and does not reflect PACE’s standpoint. It is out of line with the values, principles, and norms of international law which PACE as an association of 48 European nations protects. We know of Argamunt’s visits to Moscow during the election to the Duma. And we realize that the Kremlin is very good at figuring out who could be a public speaker and champion of their interests. We see that Russia often invests resources and does everything possible to create a favorable environment for itself.
“Yet I would like to emphasize that Agramunt’s statement absolutely does not mean that the deputies, who represent their national parliaments, back his initiative to restore the Russian delegation to PACE.
“For Ukraine and for PACE in general the passing of two resolutions had a particular importance. One of them clearly names Russia as the aggressor state which must cease fire, release hostages, and compensate the damages to Ukraine. And here I would like to stress the role of two deputies, Christina Zelenkova (the Czech Republic) and Marieluise Beck (Germany), whose effort made the passing of these resolutions possible.
“How can the lifting of sanctions, or the restoration of Russia’s vote (which it demands), even be a matter of discussion before Russia has begun to respect the abovementioned PACE resolutions?
“We are absolutely aware that via PACE and its president’s statements Russia is currently testing the international community’s ability to speak with it. We know that there are people who say that Russia is too big to be ignored. Yet everyone must clearly understand that until we have seen progress on the part of Russia, all negotiations with it will remain pointless. They will not produce any positive results which are expected by the international community, including the progress in the Ukrainian issue.”
