Sergey Naryshkin and Anne Brasseur discussed prospects for cooperation

Most of the members of the PACE presidential committee (which includes leaders of factions and committees of the parliamentary assembly) consider it advisable that the issue of depriving the Russian delegation of the right to vote in the new year, 2015, should not be raised. This was stated yesterday by members of the Presidential Committee in Moscow at a meeting with State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin and members of the Russian delegation. A rapprochement in the positions of the two sides on the situation in eastern Ukraine is not yet expected.

State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin (left) again convinced PACE President Anne Brasseur (right) to return Russia's right to vote in PACE
Photo: Dmitry Dukhanin, Kommersant / buy photo

After PACE deprived the Russian delegation of the right to vote due to the transfer of Crimea to the jurisdiction of the Russian Federation, State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin and Assembly Chairman Anne Brasseur decided to maintain a dialogue at least at the level of the State Duma and the PACE Presidential Committee. Their first meeting took place in September in Paris ( see Kommersant, September 3 ). Now the committee members paid a return visit to Moscow. Sergei Naryshkin invited European parliamentarians to discuss “the violation of the rights of journalists, the information blockade in a number of European media,” and also invited them to attend a round table in Moscow on November 25, dedicated to the problem of “overcoming the crisis of confidence in Europe.” Madame Brasseur replied that PACE members “should participate” in the conference, but on that day she would receive the Pope in Strasbourg.

How deputies gather for the PACE session

The rest of the dialogue took place behind closed doors. As Andreas Gross, head of the socialist political group and rapporteur of the PACE monitoring committee on Russia, told Kommersant, the three-hour meeting took place in an atmosphere of “openness and honesty.” According to him, “everything that happened over the last ten months between Kiev and Moscow, Kiev and Crimea, as well as the situation in Odessa, Donetsk and Lugansk” was discussed, “a variety of interpretations were voiced.” According to Kommersant, most participants agreed that restoring the rights of the Russian delegation in January would be a positive outcome of the next PACE session, which will take place in January. Andreas Gross told Kommersant that “the majority of the meeting participants” want PACE “to vote in January for the full restoration of the rights of the Russian delegation.” “No one is interested in a new cold order or even a cold war, so dialogue should cover as much of the continent as possible,” he said.

How Sergei Naryshkin sets Europe up for peace

“The absence of Russia is felt in PACE, otherwise they would not have come. The most sober part understands that PACE is a pan-European organization of inter-parliamentary cooperation. And if one of the leading countries of Europe is not there, then this undermines pan-European cooperation,” the head of the Duma told Kommersant. Committee on International Affairs, head of the Russian delegation to PACE Alexey Pushkov (United Russia). According to him, the members of the committee at the meeting “recognized” that in the current situation “organizations such as the OSCE, where no sanctions have been adopted against the Russian Federation,” began to come to the fore: “PACE finds itself on the sidelines of inter-parliamentary interaction - in that regarding Russia and the solution to the Ukrainian crisis."

The negotiation process between representatives of the Russian parliament and PACE is not yet over. “We agreed to meet in December in Vienna. To make it possible to get a majority of votes in favor of restoring the Russian Federation’s rights in January, we still have to do some work. But now the Duma representatives have proposed things that I did not even hope for two months ago in time of the meeting in Paris. They are included in the list of issues that will be discussed at the next meeting,” Mr. Gross said. As Mr. Pushkov explained to Kommersant, “we are talking about a set of proposals for reports on human rights violations and the humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine.” Ms. Brasseur noted yesterday that “no agreements were reached on all the problems” at the meeting, but both sides “continue to work to resolve them.” Alexey Pushkov emphasizes that it is still premature to talk “about a rapprochement of the parties’ positions on eastern Ukraine.”

Sofia Samokhina, Maria Efimova

Russia is losing its right to vote in PACE