RUSSIA NEUTERING THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE AFTER INVASION OF GEORGIA
By Vladimir Socor

Georgiandaily
October 21, 2008
NY

September 25, 2008

The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), which opens
its autumn session in Strasbourg on September 29, can hardly afford
to ignore Russia’s invasion of Georgia and its consequences.

A motion is pending at PACE to "reconsider the Russian delegation’s
credentials, on grounds of serious violations of the basic principles
of the Council of Europe" (PACE doc. 11703, September 12).

Those violations are understood to include military aggression against
Georgia, a unique case in which a Council of Europe member state has
openly invaded, dismembered, and occupied the territory of another
CE member state. Such a resort to force openly breaches Russia’s
1996 accession commitment to the CE to settle disputes by peaceful
means. Compounding the breach of CE commitments, Russian military and
paramilitary forces have ethnically cleansed the Georgian population
from South Ossetia (at least one third of that territory’s population)
and from the Russian-declared "security zone" beyond South Ossetia,
in Georgia’s interior.

PACE had for many years tolerated the use of force against Georgia
and other CE member states. Russia’s military occupation in varying
degrees of Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Transnistria, as well as the
Armenian seizure of Azerbaijani territories, with mass-scale ethnic
cleansing of Georgians and Azeris, were practically ignored by PACE
since the 1990s. Russia’s breach of commitments to the Council of
Europe found its counterpart in the CE’s abdication of its own mandate
and mission in those cases.

The motion now pending does, however, offer PACE a chance to regain
some degree of credibility. If adopted, the motion could lead to
suspension of the Russian delegation’s right to vote and other
rights of representation. It could also result in a recommendation
to the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers to suspend Russia’s
membership in the CE.

Twenty-four members of PACE from 14 member countries are co-sponsors
of the motion. They include 13 Liberals (the motion originated in
the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe–ALDE group), seven
Christian-Democrats, and four others. Fifteen of the co-sponsors are
from Central and East European countries.

For its part, Russia counts on the passivity or tacit support
of PACE members from large West European delegations that favor
business-as-usual with Moscow. Considering PACE’s voting arithmetic,
the motion may indeed crash against an immovable majority of delegates.

Realizing, however, that it can not take that attitude for granted
after invading Georgia, the Russians are using intimidation tactics
on PACE and indirectly on Western Europe. The leaders of Russia’s
delegation to PACE, Konstantin Kosachev and Mikhail Margelov, are
threatening that Russia will withdraw from PACE and the Council
of Europe altogether if that motion is adopted. The threat also
implies that Russia would discontinue its annual contribution of 23
million Euros ($34 million) to the organization’s budget. Kosachev
and Margelov have denounced the pending motion in their "Sovietspeak"
as a "provocation against the Russian people," a hint that the Russian
government itself would take retaliatory steps (Interfax, September
15, 16; RIAN, September 18).

Semi-official spokesmen for Russian policy sound dire in their
warnings. Writing in the Russian government’s newspaper, the
Berlin-based Alexander Rahr warns that adoption of the motion at
PACE would jeopardize Russia’s anti-terrorism cooperation with
Europe, undermine the Russia-Europe "energy alliance" [a code term
for European dependence on Russian energy deliveries], and entail
"heavy costs to the European business community." Rahr, however,
expresses confidence that France and Germany would not allow such a
turn of events to develop (Rossiiskaya Gazeta, September 16).

In a similar vein, Boris Makarenko of the Center for Political
Technologies warns of a "deterioration of oil and gas cooperation" and
"jeopardy to the corridor for supplying NATO forces in Afghanistan"
via Russian territory, if PACE adopts that motion (Kommersant,
September 20). Overkill warnings of this type target not so much the
PACE delegates as the political leaderships and governments in West
European countries.

An ad-hoc committee of nine PACE members visited Russia and Georgia
from September 22 to 25 on a fact-finding exercise. While in Moscow
the group’s rapporteur, Luc van den Brande of Belgium, hastened to
predict the outcome of PACE’s debate on the pending motion: "I am
convinced that a great majority of PACE members would not accept [it]"
(Itar-Tass, September 24). Even if the prejudging is improper under
the circumstances, the prediction is almost certainly on the mark.

Moscow, however, would prefer that Tbilisi be the first to
blink. Russian delegates and a few allies are hinting to retaliate
by challenging the Georgian delegation’s credentials, if the motion
that challenges the Russian credentials is put to a vote in the
assembly. The Russians would not move directly in that case, but
would prefer to use proxies, only 10 of whom would be sufficient for
a challenge motion against the Georgian delegation’s credentials.

This tactic could result in a tit-for-tat battle over procedural
details, distracting attention from the profound implications of
Russia’s invasion and ultimately placing the aggressor state and
the target state on a seemingly equivalent footing. Faced with this
prospect, the Georgian side and the motion’s sponsors may have to
reconsider or even desist. In that case, Moscow would have demonstrated
its continuing ability to influence PACE’s inner workings directly
or indirectly.