“We Don’t Need the Cold War Back in Europe” - An Exclusive Interview with Council of Europe rapporteur Stefan Schennach

 

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has adopted a resolution related to Georgia and Russia’s non-compliance of the ceasefire agreement.

On January 28, 2015, PACE adopted the following resolution: “Challenge, on substantive grounds, of the still unratified credentials of the delegation of the Russian Federation.”

The voting rights and credentials of the Russian delegation were suspended citing a need to “foster dialogue” between the parties. PACE also suspended Russia’s voting rights and its representation in the assembly’s leading bodies. In response, Russia suspended cooperation with the PACE, accusing the council of making “xenophobic statements” and staging a “parade of Russophobia.”

Georgian Journal spoke with Council of Europe’s Austrian delegate, Stefan Schennach, who chairs the PACE monitoring committee and who wasn’t pleased with the council’s decision to suspend Russia’s voting rights. He argued that the Ukrainian conflict cannot be resolved “without the full-fledged participation and the political will of Russia.”

"If you send weapons to both sides then war keeps going on. Do you want to have another Syria in eastern Ukraine?"

– Before we address the resolution itself, perhaps you could comment on Russia’s recent exit or, as some say, self-imposed exile from the Council of Europe, what do you think will be the implications of this move and who is pressuring who in this case?

– I made a proposal in April 2014 to suspend Russian credentials untill the end of the year. And when I wrote this proposal in April 2014, the whole world and the Council of Europe was under the impression of Crimea’s annexation. We needed a quick response to that because a member country of the Council of Europe was using its military power on the part of other country. Then there was the escalation of events in eastern Ukraine. Recently, in the sub-committee that I created specifically to retain dialogue with Russia, Russia showed willingness to negotiate, making it known that they were ready for dialogue. One member of the Russian delegation even said that Ukraine was not responsible for all that was and still is happening there. So I decided to make another attempt at constructive dialogue, because we don’t need the Cold War back in Europe. Russia is a European country and I firmly believe that peace and development in Europe is only possible with Russia, not without or against it. I came up with another offer; I said we will give them back their voting rights, and in exchange, they will fulfill 21 preconditions that I proposed in my report. For example that Ukrainian pilot Nadya Shevchenko should be handed over to a third country. And that we could send people from Germany as a monitoring team to Crimea to make a report and investigate both human rights and minority situations. This was my proposal, but eventually the assembly did not follow through with it. I was surprised, because previously at this point, I had a majority vote at the beginning, but then they said “No, we should suspend Russia till April”. I am a democratic person and I have to take what the majority says into account, but as a politician, I asked for a compromise and it was decided that the rapporteur can make the push for it. By the way, nobody in Ukraine’s delegation stood up and said “no”. But there were some, as we say, Cold War warriors, who didn’t want a compromise. When ten persons stand up and say “no”, then the path to compromise becomes closed. In a political way, it is not fair and I would also say that it’s unproductive and far from a moderate stance. After the vote, I asked Russians not to overreact and they decided to come back one year later.

 

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