Anti -Soviet of Europe

The next match between the teams of Russia and the Council of Europe, which, by tradition, was held in Strasbourg, again ended in vain. Everyone remained with his own: Europeans condemned Moscow, Moscow condemned the Europeans. However, that indifferent, inattentively monitoring the course of the competition, the viewer who would decide that the game was boring. No, it was an exciting duel of two worthy rivals, full of inner drama.

The purpose of the crafty Europeans was to impose a game of Russia according to the laws that once adopted, but deeply alien. Type there, observance of human rights, honest elections, independent courts, free press. The PACE resolution project, around which a real battle flared up, said that on all these and some other topics, Europe has accumulated questions to Moscow. Separately mentioned the sentences in the Khodorkovsky case and the Pussy Riot case, the death of a lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, the persecution of civil activists, and the general tightening of criminal laws. The problem of recognizing the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia was also unkindingly. The most insulting for Russia in the text of this resolution was reduced to the word "monitoring". The authors of the report, deputies Dier Frund and Andreas Gross, called for raising the status of the Russian monitoring to the level of the CE Committee of the CE. And this meant that in the most unfavorable, albeit purely theoretical case, the process of exclusion of the Russian Federation from CE would go according to a simplified procedure.

The straightforward Russians responded to this news with the power of temperament, which testified to sincere resentment. And also about a considerable foreign policy, accumulated back in Soviet times. In any case, the phrase "Do not climb into our internal affairs!" It went from there, from deep communist antiquity, forcing to recall at least the minister of Gromyko, if not about Lord Kerzone, whose ultimatum was angrily rejected by the young Soviet republic. This lord, by the way,, back in 1923, also took care of human rights, insisting on the termination of religious persecution in the USSR. Well, I got it in the brain.

Europe was advancing - Russia acted in an acute counterattack manner. About the text of the resolution prepared by the enemy, it was unequivocally said that this is a direct anti -Soviet. More precisely, Russophobia, since a modern language is now used in the dialogue with the West. As well as “scandaling” and “offensive attack”, as Russian deputies called the report. The answer was not long in coming: in protest against rude interference in the affairs of Russia, the speaker of the State Duma Naryshkin did not come to Strasbourg. It was a powerful blow, after which the chances of the parties equalized.

As a result, the judge in the ring recorded a combat draw. That is, the report sounded, and almost all points in the PACE resolution were adopted by a majority of the votes of European deputies. However, the most important of them, the most scandalous and Russophobic, about tightening control and monitoring by the Committee of Ministers, was not taken to the vote. Another attempt on Russia failed ingloriously: an attempt to condemn the expansion of Gazprom, which supposedly exerts "pressure on the countries of Central and Eastern Europe through gas prices." While everyone knows that our most famous company brings warmth almost to every European house.

In the final form, the text of the resolution came out unprecedentedly tough and extremely unpleasant for Russia, but, as they say, balanced. Even indicating individual positive trends, such as the law on parties and the governor’s elections, for which other Russians - human rights activists and other unfinished agents of the State Department criticized the trusting Europeans.

The match is completed, and here's what is interesting: it seems that the result arranged both sides, which at first seemed completely irreconcilable. There is a simple explanation. For many years, Europeans have been unsuccessfully trying to re -educate Russia, but do not want to exclude it from Ce. Since the memory of the times of the Cold War is alive and the hope that someday, during the life of future generations, the Kremlin leaders will finally be able to comprehend the meaning of human rights Western ideology. Russian leaders do not look so far, they have a different goal: to be in the Council of Europe, without fulfilling its requirements. At the intersection of these political vectors, the very heartbreaking harmony that we observed in Strasbourg yesterday and the day before yesterday and will observe tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Once every two years, when Russia and Europe will converge in the next match in order to violently attach and disperse.