Europe: Missing the target again

The suspension of Russia’s voting rights and representation in the leading bodies of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) as a reaction to Crimea’s annexation marked a definite schism between Kremlin and the West, when in response the head of delegation Alexei Pushkov demonstrated scepticism about Russia remaining a member.

It might be convenient for Russians to leave, as the relationship with PACE has been an ongoing drama – the actual reprimand is déjà vu of the measures taken to support the Chechen separatists. But the answer is different – then, the Kremlin was demonstrating a willingness to stay and compromise, now the tone has changed.

PACE’s decision in Strasbourg did not push the Russians to change their minds, neither has it brought détente to mounting tensions on the ground as the Russian flag continues to fly over the south-east – Donetsk, Lugank, Kharkiv, Odessa – industrial cities that are up in arms, which is a bad omen for the integrity of Ukraine.  While the EU flag in Kiev signified a wishful vector for integration, the Russian flag in the south-east is not a ‘wananbe’ claim, but an identity indicator: ‘we want to be with the EU’ versus ‘we are Russians’. Not an easy dilemna to resolve.

It is even more complicated to explain to the coal-miners the European logic of ‘good’ revolutionaries at Maidan Square and ‘bad’ ones in Donbass, - the political inconsistency leading the activists of the self-proclaimed Donbass Republic to consider themselves as victims of the notorious ‘double standards’. And longer Europe is wrestling with Russia neglecting the grim economic realities of Ukraine, stronger grows interest the people of South-East to keep the key of their future in their own hands. The European opposition to an idea of Ukraine as a federal state does not attract sympathies there either: if the biggest of European states – the Germany is federal, why Ukraine is not allowed to choose the same path? It will take more than the PACE resolution to explain the coal miners in Donbass, why Europe denying them the very rights it flaunts.

Caught in contradictions between the vanity to associate the whole of the Ukraine with the EU and incapacity to integrate it, moreover even offer the candidacy status label in a remote future, Europe is pushing away the only player who is traditionally supporting Ukrainian economy – Russia. As without reduced gas prices Ukrainian economy has a very little chance to climb out of economic shamble it finds itself for quite a while. The rapid devaluation of the Ukrainian grivna in the context of the already existing 30 billion sovereign debt and incapacity to pay the mounting bills for gas are swiftly pushing country to the default and further disintegration of the regions.

The sequence of disengagements from Russia, starting with G8/G7, the NATO-Russia Council and this month the PACE resolution are pushing away, together with Russia, any hope of a rapid economic fix for Ukraine.

But the PACE decision on the alienation of Russia might have consequences beyond Ukraine, as for decades Russian membership also meant obligations in the Strasbourg Court of Human Rights – a last resort for many victims of abuse by the Russian judiciary system. A pretext to abandon the Council of Europe is an opportunity for the Kremlin to remove its title as ‘top human rights violator’, with an overwhelming 129  lawsuits in 2013, by simply stopping its participation.

So the biggest loser of the PACE move might be Russian civil society – they would be deprived of an effective instrument of influence on the Kremlin, in their struggle against Putin’s authoritarian rule. Aiming at Putin but blinded by their passion to promote democratic values, Europeans are hitting their faithful Russian allies hard instead. Europe has obviously changed from the times of William Tell.

Anna van Densky

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