TALLINN – Russia should change its behavior in Ukraine and Georgia if it wants its rights reinstated in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid said.
“It is no-win situation and no political compromises or room-voting will solve the problems. The solution is only possible if Russia changes its behavior in Ukraine and in Georgia, then international law will start working again. And then we’ll be able to discuss how and in what way the outcomes of such actions may reflect on the PACE and other Council of Europe agencies related to conventional systems,” Kaljulaid said after meeting with her country’s delegation to PACE on May 31.
PACE’s decision to suspend Russia “was bold and based on values. Yet today there is also one more reason to suspend the voting right: Russia has not paid its membership fees and if the fees are not paid for two years, then the voting right gets suspended one way or another,” Kaljulaid said.
Five years have passed since that decision, which also barred Russia from PACE leadership elections and monitoring missions, but nothing has changed in its behavior: “Today, in 2019, Crimea is still occupied, there is daily fighting in Donbas, much of Georgia is also occupied, and nothing has changed for the better,” the Estonian president said.
In this situation, “Estonia needs strategic patience, because in a situation where interests and values collide, it is very easy for small states to make their choice: interests can change but the compass of values cannot.”
