"Sensitive Section"

European parliamentarians discuss human rights ahead of new EU-Russia agreement

The issue of respect for human rights occupies a strategically important place in the negotiations on a new basic agreement between the EU and Russia and will be raised at the upcoming EU-Russia summit in Brussels on 7 December. The topic of human rights in this regard...

The issue of respect for human rights occupies a strategically important place in the negotiations on a new basic agreement between the EU and Russia and will be raised at the upcoming EU-Russia summit in Brussels on 7 December.

The topic of human rights in connection with this summit was discussed at a meeting of the subcommittee on human rights of the European Parliament. The deputies reminded that they would approve the new EU-Russia agreement.

Representatives of the European Commission and the Council of the EU answered the deputies' questions. The European Commission spokeswoman said that this is a "priority and specific element" in the negotiations and will be included in the "sensitive sections" of the future agreement. Answering a question from MP Graham Watson about the contacts of the European Commission with Russian NGOs, she said that human rights activists "give up." The coming to power of Dmitry Medvedev gave rise to some hopes, but since then the situation has not changed significantly. Russian human rights activists, she said, are concerned about the overly broad definition of extremism in Russian criminal law. As a result, religious groups, journalists, politicians, bloggers, social activists and even artists are accused of making extremist statements. The representative of the European Commission noted that "there is a big gap between the text of this law, which generally complies with European standards, and its application in practice."

European parliamentarians reviewed consultations on human rights between the EU and Russia. “From 2005 to 2010, 11 rounds of consultations took place, during which time eight human rights activists were killed in Russia,” said a representative of the International Federation of Human Rights who spoke at the subcommittee.

MEPs proposed to involve in consultations, in addition to the Foreign Ministry, other authorities of the Russian Federation, such as the Ministries of Justice and Internal Affairs, the Prosecutor General's Office and structures responsible for the execution of sentences.