Late on June 24, when all good journalists were abed, and bad journalists were about some squalid business of their own, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe or PACE quietly set about undermining itself, its values, and quite possibly democracy in Europe.
In a press release couched in an embarrassed and defensive tone, the PACE thinly dressed up a disgraceful capitulation to the Kremlin as a measure to “ensure that member states’ right and obligation to be represented and to participate in both statutory bodies of the Council of Europe is respected.”
This is disingenuous claptrap. The member state that the PACE PR team, in obvious embarrassment, couldn’t even bring itself to mention by name was Russia, which had its voting rights in the assembly restricted following its aggressive land grab and occupation of Ukraine’s Crimea and subsequent fomenting of war in eastern Ukraine in 2014.
Russia’s voting rights were suspended because it is in breach of its obligations under the founding treaty of the Council of Europe, the Treaty of London, which Moscow signed on Feb. 28, 1996. According to Article 3 of the treaty, “every member of the Council of Europe must accept the principles of the rule of law and of the enjoyment by all persons within its jurisdiction of human rights and fundamental freedoms, and collaborate sincerely and effectively in the realization of the aim of the Council…”
The Kremlin, by invading and occupying Ukrainian territory is clearly flouting one of the foremost principles of the Council of Europe – adherence to international law. Moreover, it is also in breach of Article 3 through its human rights abuses, committed not only in occupied Crimea, but also in Russia itself. Russia is an authoritarian police state, headed by an election-rigging dictator. It has no business being part of an organization that is supposed to promote democracy.
What does the Council of Europe’s own statute say about what should be done with members, like Russia, that have broken the organization’s rules? According to Article 8, “any member of the Council of Europe which has seriously violated Article 3 may be suspended from its rights of representation and requested by the Committee of Ministers to withdraw… If such member does not comply with this request, the Committee may decide that it has ceased to be a member of the Council as from such date as the Committee may determine.”
It could not be plainer. Russia has for five years been in breach of its obligations under the Treaty of London and the talk just now should be of ejecting it from the PACE and the Council of Europe.
But that would only be if the members of the PACE were willing to obey their own statute and stand up for the values that it declares – the promotion of democracy through the principles that are its foundations: the rule of law, and human rights and freedoms. It is equally plain that most of them are not willing to do so.
Instead, by a shameful vote of 118 in favor and 62 against, the PACE voted through a shabby fix that breaks its own rules of procedure to allow the Russian delegation to the assembly to present its credentials in June (it’s usually only done in January) so that it can take its seats in PACE again. Moreover, it welcomed the support of the Council of Europe’s other statutory body, the Committee of Ministers, for its proposal to set up a “joint reaction procedure” for when “a member state violates its statutory obligations or does not respect the basic principles and values upheld by the Council of Europe…”
Make no mistake, this “joint reaction procedure” is an unprincipled sidestepping of those same “basic principles and values” of the Council of Europe, designed to give the Kremlin a path back to participating in PACE without Moscow giving anything back in return.
Well, not quite, and here we reach the shameful, unprincipled, unethical heart of the matter. Russia, as one of the largest countries by population, not only qualifies for 18 seats in the PACE, along with the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Turkey, it also is supposed to contribute heavily to the council’s 437 million euro 2019 annual budget. However, in retaliation for the entirely proper suspension of its delegation’s voting rights, Russia stopped contributing to the budget in 2017 – another reason why Russia should be expelled from the body, incidentally.
The Council of Europe has thus been facing a budget crisis since 2017, and has had to make cuts to its spending of some 9 percent. It is also plain that be “solving the Russia problem,” the council hopes to resolve its budget problems too.
So, again plainly, the Council of Europe has proved that it is willing to sacrifice its principles and values for money – something that the Kremlin will find deeply satisfying, and confirming of all of its preconceptions about the West.
But PACE’s sell-out actually comes at a huge additional price: First, the incalculable loss of its principles, moral authority and reputation among the new democracies of the east, including Ukraine but also the Baltic States and Poland. Second, as the Russian delegation is now to include so-called representatives of Ukraine’s occupied Crimea, the PACE will implicitly recognize the Kremlin’s claimed annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula.
But third and worst of all, the removal of sanctions against Russia is the first brick to fall from the shoddy wall of measures thrown up by the West to contain Kremlin aggression. The entire construction is weakened now, and will inevitably fall in time if not buttressed.
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is being proved right: He only had to wait long enough, and Western will would crumble. His calculation that the West’s politicians are hypocrites, talking of high values but willing to strike low deals for cash, was on the money.
For the Kremlin, waiting out sanctions until the West’s will to enforce them flags is a winning strategy.
As the politicians of PACE count their rubles, they should hang their heads in shame. But they won’t – they are plainly shameless for accepting the Kremlin’s money in exchange for betraying the principles that underpin the civilized world.
Meanwhile, this sickening capitulation by one of the institutions of the West will embolden the Russian dictator, and it is Ukraine that will bear the brunt of further Kremlin aggression.
But it won’t stop there, and one day the leaders of the Western countries that sold Kyiv out on June 24, 2019 may pay dearly for their appeasement.
Frontlines 
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