Ukraine has temporarily suspended its membership at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, or PACE, after the 47-nation international body voted to reinstate Russia’s membership.
PACE is the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe and includes more nations than the 28-member European Union among its member states. Among other responsibilities, it oversees the European Court of Human Rights.
The Assembly voted for restoring Russia’s rights as a PACE member on June 25, essentially lifting one of the most important European sanctions against Russia in the process. 118 deputies voted for the motion, 62 against, while 10 abstained.
French, Spanish, Italian and Turkish, as well as six other nations’ delegates, unanimously supported Russia’s return to PACE while Ukrainian, British, Polish, Georgian, and the Baltic country delegations were strongly against it.
Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Ukraine’s vice prime minister, said on June 25 that Ukraine’s closest allies in Europe had unsuccessfully mobilized to try and prevent the motion from passing. Later, she said that a “Pandora’s box” had been opened.
The Ukrainian delegation to PACE temporarily suspended its membership because of the decision, according to Mariya Ionova, acting chairperson of the Verkhovna Rada committee for European integration. In the meantime, the delegation temporarily suspended its membership of PACE on June 25, planning to return only for a June 26 session in which it will demand that PACE not allow Russia to have voting rights at the European body.
“We do not see ourselves in the same room with the Russians,” Ionova told news agency Interfax-Ukraine. “We will stand up and protest,” she said. “And when they remain in the hall, we will leave it.”
Four out of 18 deputies from the Russian delegation are currently under international sanctions because they voted for or have otherwise supported Russian aggression against Ukraine. Ionova thinks that accepting the Russian delegation back will see PACE “commit suicide.”
Ukrainian PACE delegation head Volodymyr Ariev claimed that delegates had appealed to President Volodymyr Zelensky to “form a unified political position” before the PACE session, but Zelensky allegedly ignored the requests.
“Our appeals did not receive due attention, and as a result, the Ukrainian delegation remained without the political support of the head of state,” the European Solidarity party website, the party of ex-President Petro Poroshenko, cited Ariev.
“President Zelensky made certain statements during his recent visits to France and Germany, but statements need to be defended, not just voiced,” Ariev said.
Zelensky said on June 25 he was “disappointed” at the PACE decision, according to a post on his Facebook page. He added that he had discussed “personally” the issue with French President Emmanuel Macron on June 17 and with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on June 18, “trying to convince them that return of the Russian delegation to PACE was possible only after Russia met the PACE conditions.”
“It’s a pity that our European partners didn’t hear us and did it otherwise,” Zelensky said. “I am grateful to the Ukrainian parliamentary delegation and friendly national delegations who bravely fought to the end.”
Zelensky also pointed to PACE’s main argument to reinstate Russia was the need to protect human rights. “I hope… nobody (at PACE) had any thoughts about material values,” Zelensky wrote.
Meanwhile, Ukraine and Georgia have filed an appeal against the decision and PACE is currently reviewing it.
International reactions
Kersti Kaljulaid, the president of Estonia, said that “maneuvering” Russia back into PACE was an embarrassment to the organization. “None of the reasons Russia was stripped of its voting rights have disappeared,” she said in a Tweet.
“The U.K. does not support Russia’s unconditional return to PACE,” Mark Pritchard, a British member of parliament and special representative to Southeast Europe told the Kyiv Post on June 25.
“Britain has consistently called on Russia to pay all of its outstanding budgetary contributions to the Council of Europe and show that it takes its values seriously, including human rights. Russia should fulfill all its obligations before any return of its delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly,” he added.
Linas Linkevicius, the Lithuanian minister of foreign affairs, said in a statement that his country had strictly opposed Russia’s reinstatement and that Russia’s “unconditional return” to PACE was “at the expense of its own values and principles.”
Ilya Ponomarev, a former Russian member of parliament who opposed Russia’s illegal seizure of Crimea in 2014 and recently became a Ukrainian citizen after five years of self-imposed exile in Ukraine, also had strong words for PACE.
“Previously, this organization had the status of useless, but highly moral. Now it is useless and immoral,” he said.
Some European lawmakers have been accused of supporting Russia in rejoining PACE because it might further their own interests. Some lawmakers will have voted for Russia’s membership being reinstated as they think it could make them more accountable to European law.
Questioned in the U.K. parliament on June 24 by lawmakers supportive of Ukraine, outgoing British Prime Minster Theresa May suggested that Russia’s return to PACE could be helpful, as a way of holding it accountable to international law. In Strasbourg however, U.K. delegates strongly opposed this view.
John Whittingdale, a U.K. member of parliament and former secretary of state who currently chairs the Ukrainian friendship committee in Westminster, told the Kyiv Post that he was disappointed by May’s position, which could be misguided and seen as supportive to Russia.
“I’m afraid it was supportive. The U.K. government seems to think its helpful for Russia to be subject to the European Court of Human Rights and that it provides a platform for putting pressure on them. But it is up to individual PACE members to decide how to vote and my colleagues (in Strasbourg) were very supportive of Ukraine.”
