Russia to focus on Council of Europe modernization reports at PACE

STRASBOURG, June 20 (Itar-Tass) -- A summer session of the
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, which will open here on
Monday, does not expect any dramatic debates for Moscow, Chairman of the
State Duma Foreign Relations Committee Konstantin Kosachev, who heads the
Russian delegation, said.
The priority issues for the Russian delegation will be the reports for
the modernization of the Council of Europe. A report delivered by the head
of the French delegation Jean-Claude Mignon on the PACE reform will be put
up for debates. "It can be stated that the document turned out to be quite
less radical than we expected. The report content turned out to be quite
less substantial. The Russian delegation raises protests over the content
of the report. It is regretful what the report missed," Kosachev said.
This report does not dwell on making the monitoring procedure in PACE
better, meanwhile, for Moscow this issue is quite acute. "PACE is
monitoring ten countries, including Russia. The latest report on Russia
was made six years ago, though it is to be drafted no rarer than once in
two years," the head of the Russian delegation said. "We are facing
constantly changing rapporteurs and various approaches. No concrete
provisions have been drafted over 'the road map' to abolish the PACE
monitoring towards Russia," the Russian deputy said. The Russian
delegation intends to insist on a scope of amendments to be made in Mignon'
s report, which will restrict the Council of Europe monitoring only by the
commitments, which the Council of Europe states assumed in the entry to
the organization, but not those assumed later.
The report of the Group of Wise Persons "Live together in the
twenty-first century" will be also discussed. The report was drafted under
the instructions from the Council of Europe general secretary and concerns
the future of this organization in general. "Still the report has a quite
narrow content and touches on the issues of tolerance, inter-faith
dialogue, racism, xenophobia and nationalism. A draft report had a quite
more sweeping content than the final variant of the report. The neo-Nazism
problem was not touched at all," Kosachev noted. He noted that the Russian
delegation has initiated a draft resolution on counteraction to the
manifestations of neo-Nazism and right-wing radicalism, which will dwell
on the outrageous events during the VE-Day celebrations in Lvov on May 9.
In other issues, the PACE session will bring no surprises, Kosachev
said. Even a report on such a pressing problem as the current situation in
North Africa has been dropped from the agenda. "By all appearances, it is
the lack of unity in the political commission and between interethnic
delegations towards the current events there and to what extent other
countries should or can interfere in the ongoing tendencies," the head of
the delegation said. Kosachev has made no initiative on urgent or current
debates that "is an extremely rare case," Kosachev noted.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich and Foreign Minister Konstantin
Grishchenko are expected to deliver speeches at a PACE summer session,
because Ukraine holds the rotating presidency in the Council of Europe.