Offener Brief: Den Europarat retten

Mit der Annexion der Krim und dem uner­klärten Krieg in der Ostukraine hat die russische Führung die Prin­zi­pien der euro­päi­schen Frie­dens­ord­nung mit Füßen getreten. Daraufhin wurden Russland die Stimm­rechte in der Parla­men­ta­ri­schen Versamm­lung des Euro­pa­rats entzogen. Das ist eine Frage der Selbst­ach­tung dieses Gremiums, das die Einhal­tung der Menschen­rechte, den gegen­sei­tigen Gewalt­ver­zicht und die gleiche Souve­rä­nität aller euro­päi­schen Staaten gewähr­leisten soll. Jetzt versucht der Kreml im Verein mit seinen poli­ti­schen Freunden eine Aufhebung dieser Sanktion zu erreichen, ohne seine Politik im mindesten zu ändern. Damit würde der Europarat seine norma­tiven Grund­lagen aufgeben.  Dagegen richtet sich der folgende Offene Brief von Personen des öffent­li­chen Lebens aus ganz Europa.

Open Letter

We, the under­si­gned, are strongly concerned about the possible demise of the Council of Europe, which can take place very soon.

In response to Russia’s illegal annexa­tion of the Crimea and military aggres­sion in Eastern Ukraine the Council of Europe suspended the voting rights of the Russian dele­ga­tion. In its turn, Russia has turned to blackmail, having suspended member­ship fees to the Council of Europe and boycot­ting parti­ci­pa­tion in the Parlia­men­tary Assembly.

In order to trium­phantly return to the PACE in January next year without imple­men­ting demands contained in a number of PACE reso­lu­tions, Russia and its supporters decided to act by the principle: if you can not change the policy of the Council of Europe, change its rules. If changes to the current sanctions rules are made, it will be virtually impos­sible to apply sanctions in the future AGAINST ANY MEMBER STATE.

Such changes, resulting in the uncon­di­tional return of Russia to PACE, will have the following negative impact on the Council of Europe and situation with human rights in Europe:

1) by allowing Russia to succeed in black­mai­ling, the CoE will compro­mise and discredit itself. A weak Council of Europe will lose its authority and influence in those parts of Europe where it is needed the most;

2) without the capacity to apply sanctions, the Parlia­men­tary Assembly of the Council of Europe will become a toothless orga­niza­tion, stripping itself of the only tool which could motivate an offender of the CoE’s declared values – democracy, human rights and rule of law – to correct its policies;

3) it could trigger a full-scale crisis in the organization.

We call upon the ruling elites of all CoE Member States not to allow the demise of the orga­niza­tion. History will judge harshly those who give in to blackmail from unde­mo­cratic societies where the rule of force is above the rule of law.

Signed by:
Toomas Hendrik Ilves, fourth president of Estonia (2006–2016)
Petras Aušt­re­vičius, Member of the European Parlia­ment, Lithuania
Eitvydas Bajarunas, Ambassador-at-Large for Hybrid threats, Lithua­nian MFA,
Andrius Kubilius, Member of Parlia­ment, Prime Minister of Lithuania (1999–2000, 2008–2012)
Beatriz Becerra, Member of the European Parlia­ment, vice-chair of the European Parlia­ment Subcom­mittee on Human Rights, Spain
Rebecca Harms, Member of the European Parlia­ment, Germany
Anna Maria, Corazza Bildt, Member of the European Parlia­ment, Sweden
Ana Gomes, Member of the European Parlia­ment, Portugal
František Kopřiva, Deputy, Czech Pirate Party, Repre­sen­ta­tive to PACE, Czech Republic
Jan Lipavsky, Member of the Parlia­ment, Chamber of Deputies, Czech Republic
Werner Schulz, former MP and MEP, Germany
Hanne Seve­rinsen, Danish Helsinki Committee, Former MP and PACE, Denmark
Marie­luise Beck, Former Bundestag Member, Germany
Danylo Lubkivsky, Former Deputy Foreign Minister, Ukraine
Markus Meckel, Former Foreign Minister of the GDR; Vors. Stif­tungsrat Bundes­stif­tung Aufar­bei­tung, Germany
Paweł Kowal, Former member of the European Parlia­ment, Poland

Also signed by:
Sonja Adelheid, member, Bündnis 90/​die Grünen, Germany
Hannes Adomeit, Senior fellow, Institute for Security Policy, UKIEL, Germany
Willem Alders­hoff, former head of unit, European Commis­sion, Analyst inter­na­tional affairs, Belgium
Jessikka Aro, Jour­na­list, Finland
Anders Åslund, Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council, Swedish citizen, resident in the USA
Dalia Bank­aus­kaite, Head of the Media program at the Vilnius Institute for policy analysis, Lithuania
Kamil Basaj, Info Ops Project Manager, CEO at @Disinfo_Digest, Poland
Steven Blockmans, Senior research fellow, CEPS, Belgium
Olaf Boehnke, Advisor, Alliance of Demo­cra­cies, Germany
Tim Bohse, Political Scientist, Germany
Simon Bracey-Lane, Research Fellow, Institute for State­craft, UK
Alek­sandar Brezar, Editor, National RTV of Bosnia and Herze­go­vina (BHRT), Bosnia and Herzegovina
Pascal Bruckner, philo­so­pher, France
Simas Čelutka, Head of European Security Programme at Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis, Lithuania
Iulian Chifu, Professor, rese­ar­cher; Conflict Preven­tion and Early Warning Center Bucharest, Romania
Carmen Claudín, Associate senior rese­ar­cher CIDOB, Spain
Evan O’Connell, European Affairs commen­tator, France
Halyna Coynash, Kharkiv Human Rights Group, Ukraine
Eugene Czolij, Ukrainian World Congress, President, Canada
Haroldas Daublys, Head of Lithua­nian Riflemen’s Union’s support group for Ukraine, Lithuania
Danilo Elia Rai, Public broad­caster of Italy /​ Jour­na­list, Italy
Urve Eslas, Adjunct fellow, CEPA, Estonia
Yevhen Fedchenko, Stopfake.org co-founder, Ukraine
André Fesiak, Inde­pen­dent Rese­ar­cher, France
Petr Fojtík, Analyst, Czech Pirate Party, Czech Republic
Ralf Fuecks, Center for Liberal Modernity, Director, Germany
Anna Garmash, Head of “Ukraine Action” (NGO), France
Alyona Getman­chuk, director, New Europe Center, Ukraine
Anke Giesen, Lecturer, Germany
Paul Goble, Former US Govern­ment Specia­list on the Non-Russian Peoples of the Formber Soviet Space, USA
George Grabowicz, Professor, Harvard Univer­sity, United States
Gustav Gressel, Senior Policy Fellow; European Council on Foreign Relations, Germany
Iulian Groza, Executive Director, Institute for European Policies and Reforms, Moldova
Pavel Havlicek, Analyst at Asso­cia­tion for Inter­na­tional Affairs (AMO) in Prague, Czech Republic
Berta Herrero, MEP Advisor, European Parlia­ment, Spain
Maryna Iaros­he­vych, Director of the Ukrainian World Congress Mission to Inter­na­tional Orga­niza­tions, Belgium
Jakub Janda, Director, European Values Think-Tank, Czech Republic
Kornely Kakachia, Georgian Institute of Politics, Georgia
Julia Kazdobina, Head, Ukrainian Foun­da­tion for Security Studies, Ukraine
Tamar Kint­s­u­rash­vili, Director, Media Deve­lo­p­ment Foun­da­tion (MDF), Georgia
Lino Klevesath, political scientist, Germany
Jana Kobzova, Advisor, Alliance of Demo­cra­cies, Belgium
Petr Kolář, Občané pro – Citizens for Czech Republic
Peter Koller, The Greens, Germany
Lyudmyla Kozlovska, President of the Open Dialogue Foun­da­tion, Belgium
Jacek Kuch­ar­czyk, President, Institute of Public Affairs, Poland
Kosti­antyn Kvurt, Head of Board at Internews Ukraine, Ukraine
Philippe De Lara, assistant professor of political science at Paris 2 univer­sity, France
Marius Lauri­na­vicius, Senior expert, Vilnius Institute for Policy Analysis, Lithuania
John Lough, Associate Fellow, Russia & Eurasia Programme, Chatham House, the United Kingdom
Jeff Lovitt, New Diplomacy, Chair, UK and Czech Republic
Oleksiy Makukhin, Ukraine Crisis Media Center, Ukraine
Jens Mattern, Jour­na­list, Poland
Olek­sandra Matvi­y­chuk, Head of Center for Civil Liberties, Ukraine
Daniel Mazur, Project Manager; Charles Univer­sity, Czech Republic
Martin Mycielski, Brussels Corre­spon­dent, Gazeta Wyborcza, Belgium
James Nixey, Head, Russia and Eurasia Programme, Chatham House
Ghia Nodia, Chairman, Caucasus Institute for Peace, Democracy and Deve­lo­p­ment (CIPDD), Georgia
Robert van der Noordaa, inves­ti­ga­tive jour­na­list, the Netherlands
Oxana Pach­lovska, Professor, Univer­sity of Rome, Italy–Ukraine
Massi­mi­liano Di Pasquale, Jour­na­list and writer, Italy
Tetiana Pechon­chyk, Human Rights Infor­ma­tion Center, the head of board, Ukraine
Nicolas De Pedro, Senior fellow, Institute for State­craft, Spain
Christian Pieper, Judge, Germany
Iryna Pieper, Teacher, Germany
Tetiana Pushnova, Inde­pen­dent media consul­tant, former Chief Producer of inter­na­tional TV Channel UKRAINE TODAY, Ukraine
Antje Rempe language teacher; president of the Part­ner­schafts­verein Charkiw-Nürnberg, Germany
Igor Reshet­nyak, Rese­ar­cher, EPFL, Switzerland
Ben Robinson, Senior Fellow, Institute for State­craft, UK
Giedrius Sakal­auskas, Res Publica, Lithuania
Olaf Saxegaard, Consul­tant, Norway
Alya Shandra, editor, Euro­maidan Press, Ukraine
Anton Shek­hovtsov, Institute for Euro-Atlantic Coope­ra­tion, Ukraine
Kristian Magnus Skarsvåg, IT consul­tant, Norway
Maria Slesazeck, DRA e.V., Germany
Vladimir Socor, Senior Fellow, Jamestown Foun­da­tion, USA /​ Germany
Susan Stewart, German Institute for Inter­na­tional and Security Affairs (SWP), Germany
Alice Stoll­meyer, Executive Director, Defending Democracy, Belgium
Dovile Sukyte, Policy Analyst, Eastern Europe Studies Centre, Lithuania
Sergiy Sydorenko, Editor, European Pravda, Ukraine
Joanna Szostek, Lecturer, Univer­sity of Glasgow, United Kingdom
Wolfgang Templin, Publicist, Germany
Lasha Tughushi, Chairman of the Georgian national platform, EaP Civil Society Forum, Georgia
Reinhard Weißhuhn, Robert-Havemann-Gesell­schaft, Germany
Robert Werner, CEO, Germany
Kataryna Wolczuk, Associate Fellow, Chatham House, United Kingdom
Anna Yavorska, Advocacy Officer, Open Dialogue Foun­da­tion, Belgium
Volodymyr Yermo­lenko, philo­so­pher, jour­na­list, editor at UkraineWorld.org, Ukraine
Borys Zakharov, Huma­ni­ta­rian Studio Khvylia, Head of the Board, Ukraine
Bjørn Johan Berger, Norway
Anzhela Prazdnich­nykh, Belgium
Malvin Nygård, Norway
Dr. Ječmínek Jan Martin, Czech Republic
Antonina Demenko, Norway
Even Jahr, Norway
Jaroslav Froněk, Czech Republic
Ondřej Moravčík, Czech Republic

Der offene Brief kann weiterhin hier unter­zeichnet werden. Dort ist auch die aktuelle Unter­zeich­ner­liste einzusehen.