The spring, 2010 Ordinary Session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is opening in Strasbourg on April 26. Surprisingly, the PACE has no intention to discuss the recurrences of Nazism in the Baltic countries, Ukraine, Croatia, Albania and Kosovo on the eve of the anniversary of the main event of the XX century - the victory of the anti-fascist coalition in World War II. Nor will it focus on the socioeconomic ills currently overwhelming the entire Europe from Iceland to Greece. Judging by the themes of the key reports on the agenda of the PACE session, the problems regarded as truly urgent by the PACE are the consequences of the August, 2008 war between Georgia and Russia and the famine in the USSR (Holodomor) in the 1930ies.
Russia`s not preventing the formulation of the agenda in the run-up to the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II is a major failure of its diplomacy. The reports titled Commemorating the victims of the great famine (Holodomor) in the former USSR and The consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia are both scheduled for April 28.
The first of the two reports was finalized by January, and at the time it was already clear that its main thrust was that the famine in the Soviet Union in the 1930ies should be recognized as genocide. Nevertheless, Konstantin Kosachyov who chairs the foreign affairs committee of the Russian parliament reacted by stating that a number of the report`s amendments were unacceptable to Russia - fundamentally in a number of cases - only in April. He said the amendments should be brushed off if the PACE has conscience and common sense. Truly speaking, I would rather rely on the efficiency of the Russian delegation rather than on the conscience and common sense of the PACE.
The situation around the second report is even more complicated. First, according to media accounts the Georgian delegation floated the initiative to call into question the credentials of its Russian peers at the PACE spring session in connection with the 2008 conflict in South Ossetia. According to Kosachyov, the Russian delegation would leave the PACE session in case the plan materialized, but this is clearly the least rational option. What the Russian team should do is to face the challenge at the forum of Europe`s "democratic conscience" (as the PACE chose to describe itself on its web site) and to boldly defend Russia`s position. In case the Russian delegation withdraws from the session, Russian Foreign Minister S. Lavrov who plans to attend it on April 29 will be confronted with an extremely unfavorable environment. In his talk, he will stress the global importance of the triumph over fascism and lay out Russia`s vision of the international politics. Lavrov will also criticize historical revisionism at the PACE session and address such themes as the advancement towards a European security treaty and the role the European Council should take in overcoming the consequences of the Cold War and the divisions it bred. These are priority issues that should become the highlights of the PACE spring session and make media headlines. It would be unwise to create the circumstances under which the Russian Foreign Minister might have to cancel his visit.
Secondly, the Monitoring Committee has already listened to the report on the consequences of the war between Georgia and Russia at an extraordinary sitting on April 25. This is a novel practice - in the past, the Monitoring Committee`s sittings used to be synchronized with the session. No doubt, now the atmosphere of the discussion is going to be a priori anti-Russian. In the aftermath of the 2008 conflict the PACE "recommended" that Russia withdraw its recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia but did not support the bid of the radicals (Georgia, Poland, and the Baltic republics) to revoke Russia`s right to vote. Georgia stated in October, 2009 that it would not abandon the attempts to suspend the Russian delegation`s PACE credentials. Tbilisi`s political reckoning is obvious: Russia`s image of the country that brought liberation to Europe at the cost of millions of lives of its people and their immense sufferings would be replaced with that of an aggressor. How does the "democratic conscience" feel about such games?
The PACE is a supranational body. On the one hand, as such it is instrumental in addressing the international problems that can only be resolved on the collective basis. On the other, the PACE can be a threat to individual states making them comply with resolutions colliding with their national interests.
The Russian delegation should permanently and efficiently defend Russia`s national interests in the court of the European public opinion.
