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On June 24th, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) voted to make it possible for Russia to return to the chamber.
In an unprecedented late-night vote on the opening day of its summer plenary session, the @CoE Assembly affirms its members' rights "to vote, to speak and to be represented in the Assembly and its bodies" https://t.co/UosdsaVqNl pic.twitter.com/ZVwlkuRc8T
— PACE (@PACE_News) June 24, 2019
The Council voted in favor of all members having their “rights to vote,” meaning that Moscow received its voting rights for the first time since 2014.
In addition, Moscow was invited to present a delegation on June 25th.
“Citing the “exceptional context” of a recent decision by the Committee of Ministers, the Assembly also decided, in a derogation from its Rules of Procedure, to invite the parliaments of Council of Europe member States “which are not represented by a delegation to the Assembly” to present their credentials at the June 2019 part-session.”
All PACE member states have the “rights to vote, to speak and to be represented in the Assembly and its bodies shall not be suspended or withdrawn in the context of a challenge to or reconsideration of credentials,” an amendment said.
It won with 118 votes to 62, with 10 abstentions.
The head of the Russian State Duma’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Leonid Slutsky, said PACE “made a huge step toward defending the rights of national delegations.”
Russia’s delegation will not tolerate “any more sanctions, no matter how insignificant,” Slutsky also said.
Naturally, Ukraine was in a hysteria.
The head of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE, Volodymyr Ariyev, said the assembly’s decision sent “a very bad message: do what you want, annex another country’s territory, kill people there, and you will still leave with everything.”
Member of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE Iryna Gerashchenko also criticized today’s session on Facebook, stating that statements about Russia’s return to PACE is the betrayal of the principles.
“The majority of the Europeans say terrible things. Like, the sanctions against Russia have not lived up; the Council of Europe and PACE should not deal with the issues of the security and defense of the territorial integrity; it is not our tasks and competences; we should not deal with the decision of the inner conflicts between the countries-members of our organization; we should take care of the future of our organization and demand the payment of the contributions from Russia; money is very important issue, the most important; we should think about the Russians, not the Russian authority but defend the right of the Russians for the protection at the ECHR,” Gerashchenko said.
Gerashchenko said that the lifting of the European sanctions from Russia may be the next step.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that reintroducing Russia to PACE meant weakening it.
“Lifting Russia’s ban in PACE is obviously not the right policy silver bullet that could #StopRussianAggression. Conversely, it would weaken this reputable organization, subverting the fairness and transparency of rules in the CoE #SaveCouncilEurope,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Kateryna Zelenko said on Twitter on June 24.
On June 25th, when the Russian delegation came to PACE, deputies challenged the powers of the Russian delegation.
So the issue of allow Russia back would be considered by a special commission. For this, another commission – according to the rules of procedures – should prepare a report within 24 hours.
The report will be presented on the afternoon of June 26th. The delegation, whose powers are being challenged, participates in the work of the PACE, but does not vote on its issues, the head of the Assembly, Lilian Mori Pasquier, recalled.
Ukrainians asked to postpone the consideration of this document, but the notion was rejected.
Kiev said that it might suspend its membership in PACE if the Russians received their powers back.
Moscow stressed that it’s delegation would return to its duties and pay contributions only after the restoration of all rights.
The situation leading up to this was the following:
- In 2014, Russia was stripped of its voting rights in PACE following Moscow’s “takeover of Crimea and its backing of militant separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine in a conflict that has killed some 13,000 people since April 2014.”
- Russia responded in 2016 by boycotting the assembly, and has since 2017 refused to pay its annual contribution of 33 million euros, roughly 7% of the council’s budget.
- The Russian side warned that no future payments would be made until the rights of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe “are fully restored.”
So basically, more than anything PACE understood that 7% of the budget is a large portion and it wanted Moscow to resume paying its membership fee. Because it became apparent that Russia wouldn’t walk back on its decision and ask to be allowed back, PACE itself voted to allow Russia back.
It is furthermore quite obvious that the anti-Russian narrative, at least in Europe, is shrinking and is losing traction. In spite of Ukraine’s efforts and its sponsors, it has become quite apparent that there are no “human rights violations” in Crimea.
There is no actual evidence of ‘tens of thousands Russian troops’ in eastern Ukraine.
Despite the Joint Investigation Team’s best efforts to construct reality out of thin air, there is also no real evidence that Moscow is involved into the downing of the MH17 in 2014. Evidence provided by Russia was neglected by the JIT, but it doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen, or it isn’t if not conclusive, at least goes contrary to the “popular narrative.”
Thus, the time for Europe to decide has come, and the PACE decision is a huge blow against the sanction regime against Moscow.
Five lost years.
I dont see that. It has been a needed learning periode for many incl. Russia and Ukraine.
I many times has proposed thet the 2-3 100% Russian Counsils should be voted back to Russia, I hardly get any answer.
Denmark did not take what they could in 1920 after WW1 even Preussen took too much of us in 1864. Voting made the new and fair border.
Since then we have had good relations with the germans. We support the danisk minority having schools and we are represented in their Kiel local parlament even danes are not many.
Germans has the relations with their smaller minority here in Denmark they wish for and support German culture well.
They also can cross the border as they wish and work at both sides and see relatives as often as wished. A few 1000 Germans now live here in the southern part having homes an houses because its cheeper. They never has been danes but are german pendlers.
I recall that more spoke Swedish on Bohnholm than Danish
Thats not true.
Official Swedish is far from the strange accent at Bornholm, but actually its very semilar to the Skaane dialekt having 2 million speaking it having Malmoe as their biggest town.
Even funny spoken meant in a polite way, its an unchanged old Danish dialect, because Skaane had a danish origian dialect.
So in contrats to that the official Swedish and Danish languages has changed a lot and away from Bornholmish.
You are not totally mistaken. Very old danes still use the term “Bornholmer-Swedish”.
For muysterios reasons they liked us very much. When the Swedes took Bornholm and Skaane – for good reasons – people from Bornholm uprised and threw out the Swedes :)
I have been their twice. Tourists has many good reasons to visit. The first time was by the school having education about everything there, but we had fun too.
Much later as Scoutleader I took 20 boys being 12 to16 years old around by bicycles and tents.
There are many nice places in the world. Bornholm is one of them.
As open minded traveller I would say its a 7 to 10 days island, so if You come from far away, You should have a 12-14 days for it and read about it first. You have to have a kind of feeling for it before You arrive, because there are a lot of very small a well as big things to see.
August – Sept 15 is best. The sea around it warm and its not crowded with tourists in june, july into august 5.
Haha. I couldnt be. I once was hotel tourist guide and later on travel agent.
Perhaps this has changed; when I was there w my Danish girlfriend from Roskilde, there was quite a bit of Swedish spoken there
The Ukranian Oligarchs have had 5 very profitable years , Dick :)
” Gerashchenko said ”
From my knowledge of what Gerashenko and his pals say in statements such as these , together with their dubious speaking abilities in unscripted situations, I would bet real money that their PACE meeting statements were written for them by NATO advisers. Most likely the US.
I made a long post above. It is based on an article I am writing. What is playing out I think was planned and has parallels to Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Empire Trilogy. In some ways the Houthis are like the Fremen in the first book of the Dune series.
Yes. Frank Herbert’s Dune is interesting. The Spice is an analog for oil according to him – “the oil must flow” could be a motto for the elites. Houthis are like the Fremen (the word coming from Freemen) taking chunks out of the empire’s flesh.
>From my knowledge of what Gerashenko and his pals Going by the text, isn’t this another Gerashenko–a she?
Quite possibly. I was being ‘Gender Blind’. :) Many women are morons as well though in Ukraine.
:-)
Jews tortured and starved them to death by the millions. And they’ve voted a Jewish president and prime minister into office. So a lot of them obviously aren’t to bright. Having said that. If their “electoral” system is as Jew gerrymandered as in the US, Britain and France. Where the only choices are Zionist approved traitors. Then they’ve got a serious problem to correct.
it’s a trap linked with the mh17 pantomime
Bet Ukraine does not pay their PACE bills, like most of their bills.
Why do they believe they are so important.
There again, Russia, run whilst you can. Council of Europe, nothing more than a support group for your ‘5th Column’ who will slowly take inch by inch, until you see things the way the West sees things and before you know, you are back to where you were, when the Bolsheviks turned up.
Five years ago Ukraine was wrenched from Russia’s inner sphere into the clutches of the CIA. That was when diplomatic brinksmanship threatened to take us over the edge – Ukrainian admission into NATO. Even ‘Zbig’ of ‘The Grand Chess Board’ knew this was going too far as he warned, before his passing away in 2017, do not bring Ukraine into NATO. Zbig remembered the Cuban Missile Crisis which was precipitated by JFK’s Dulles style brinksmanship. Then as now, they went to far.
2014 was an important year as it brought out into the public the process of destruction of the hegemonic order – with a warning of what path we were on and needed to get off, the necessity to change course. We are witnessing the course change now with all the signs such as fragmentation of the MSM narrative.
Research the Georgia Guide-stones and the addition of a 2014 cube and take note of its proximity to a certain text on the stones. This is a warning and the stone was removed in the fall of 2014. We are still in the dangerous transition to multi-polar so the danger seems still there so why remove the 2014 stone. No 2015 or 16 etc. has replaced the 2014 stone so what did it represent?
I will leave that question out there and return to the dangerous transition period we are currently experiencing, sort of like a seven years of tribulation with 5 down, 2 to go.
The transition phase is a very dangerous time we need to survive before we reach the more stable multi-polar world order. The big deception, it is the old hegemonic world order that is ‘evil’ – 1990 to 2014. The NWO is the multi-polar world that is coming into being and how this process is unfolding tells me this was carefully planned in advance. They foresaw the dangers and so planned to reduce the risk AND accelerate the process to reduce the period of time of transition to what I estimate to 14 years – Putin’s Munich speech 2007, with the worst years 2014 until completion of transition – they go down fighting to the end.
We just had a Cuban Missile Crisis like event. Trump pulled back from the abyss with ten minutes to spare. International relations is the grand chess board of the great powers but the great powers are divided that constrains their actions while defiance to hegemonic power is translating into a tangible transition process to a multi-polar world once again. The forces pushing for war with Iran are in opposition to forces against such a war.
If the opposing factions are approximately equal, then they can neutralize each other. This ‘paralysis’ of great powers to limit high risk actions during the transition. Does not eliminate but does reduce the danger. Reducing then the time period is a complementary strategy and so enter Trump, the destroyer. Trump is the one to wreak the institutions of the old world order and the cabal recognize this, which is why they desperately try to control him. But trying to control Trump was precisely their undoing.
Ukraine was overreach that undermined the legitimacy of the world hegemony under US leadership, Trump acted to do as the cabal wished but then pushed the levers of control to far creating a backlash forcing nations to start extricating themselves from global systems of control such as SWIFT, US reserve currency, dependence on US security guarantee and policing water lanes etc.
Examine Trumps questions like why are we policing the ocean lanes of commerce for the benefit of others and what is the purpose of NATO. The questions relate to the structural world order centred on US power.
It is now too late for the cabal to reverse the damage, the damage is already done – the bulwarks have been compromised and water will successively overspill each containment compartment fill in turn with water. The unsinkable ship will sink and the cabal should know that the iceberg was not Trump, it was themselves and their arrogance.
I hope you are essentially correct.
I feel that we are now witnessing the battle between Russia and the US, and that many nations, including Western NATO nations are waiting in the woods until they can judge who has the upper hand, and then magnificently march onto the battlefield with flags flying , to then claim victory over the loser.
I hope so as well. I spoke of this in May and June of last year in a few comments including the purpose of Trump but I was less certain then. But the way events have played out can be made sense of reasonably well in this scenario. In two days my website is launched and this is the site URL: http://www.melansonwire.com It is under construction for testing the premium features for anti-hacking, enhanced site security and additional editing abilities, email etc. The content starts being uploaded tomorrow night. Email is sjm@melansonwire.com. If you email, know the web builder has access at this time until launch Friday.
Cheers
Good luck!
Looking forward to it. Will there be a comments section? ;)
Of course. I also provide forum debate and the first one is on comment and publication policy. The starting and tentative comment policy at MELANSON WIRE is based on the ‘Intercepts’ comment policy as a reasonable starting point. The forum debate will shape the finalized comment policy.
Similarly for publication policy. Start Rant: For one thing, I dislike anonymous hit pieces – the reader should be provided some information on the author as well as declaration of affiliations past and present and potential conflicts of interest – I recognize anonymity is necessary in some cases but still some info can be provided while protecting identity. End Rant.
Thank you for supportive words. The site goes live officially Friday, unless my web builder drops dead, oops, should not tempt fate…
Hope it goes well. including builders well being :)
I have to disagree here as I see it a bit differemtly. It is not a battle between US and Russia but battle of anglo – zio empire against the rest of the world. Most of the world surrendered but Russia is still staying. And this battle goes on for many seturies. US is actually irrelevant – it’s a construct of anglo-zio empire with its assigned role. Yes, US country level elites are buzzing a little bit now imagining that they have a say but those who created them will prevail and US will be reformated. China will be assigned in place of US (that’s the plan but no one knows how it will actually work). Global elites from UK (lets say medium rank but global level) will move to China (towns are already built and waiting for their arrival when time is right. Look at Hong Kong for an example of how it works). As for Western nato nations… those do wait but not to claim victory. They wait for their new master. Those euro countries are reduced to subordinate role for long time already. Vassal mentality is prevalent in their society and “elites”. Germany was different but there’s nothing left there – current Germans are feminized and weakened to required level.
Creation of islamic caliphate in place of current history is postponed because many things didn’t go according to plan of global “elites” but it is not abandoned completely.
This is a short and simplifyed description of the plan :) How it will play out – we’ll have to see. Russia is a wild card and its existance (should have been gone ~ 15 years but oops:) already made them change their plans a lot already.
You make very good points ,Tudor. The next 12 months will be pivotal I would think.
For all of us who think about these things from any perspective, we live in worrying times globally.
Sadly the majority will not think until it is too late, as always.
I disagree on some minor points but I agree with general idea. Nuances are not that important. I like the way you think and view the world. I will repeat myself :) You got to learn Russian. There’s wealth of well structured work on subjects that you touched in this post.
You are not the only one who has told me to learn Russian. Russian perspectives no doubt are best understood when expressed in the native tongue. I will take you up on your suggestion and will learn Russian. If you have advice for me, I am all ears (or eyes in this case) ;-)
Very good news.
The head of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE, Volodymyr Ariyev, said the assembly’s decision sent “a very bad message: do what you want, annex another country’s territory, kill people there, and you will still leave with everything.” Did this guy just diss the US & Israel?
In western Europa most people think, that Ukraine is a corrupt and shitty country that you should never go to. Interesting in my opinion.
Meanwhile, back in Kiev, the Fascist/Nazi City Council has lost its life over the fact that a Judge has overturned a Decision of the Council to rename one of the City’s primary Avenues from Moscow Avenue to Stefan Bandera Avenue …….. like one of the main Avenues in Rome or Berlin being renamed via Mussolini or Hitler Strasse. The Council has made quite clear that it will Appeal the Decision of the Court all the way to the Supreme Court of Ukraine!! Show how determined a band of Fascisti are the majority of City Councillors on Kiev City Council!! And Ukraine’s delegation to the Council of Europe is crying about Russia and poor Crimea?? Meanwhile, the German Foreign Minister says that Germany will never recognize Crimea as a part of Russia!! Has he spoken to the People of Sevastopol about this?
I have some better suggestions:
Failed State Avenue Property of CIA Street Only KSA Exceeds Our Incompetence Boulevard The Maiden Revolution was the next best thing to Chernobyl Lane
And the title of President changed to: Court Jester The Verkhovna Rada changed to: Alcoholics Anonymous World HQ
Alcoholics Fascist Anon