The mark of Russia in international political organizations

The Council of Europe is preparing to walk back on its principles so that Russia could resume paying its membership fees

The next launch of the Antares middle-class launch vehicle is scheduled for Nov. 15.

Nearly everything was predictable at the latest PACE session. Everything except confusion. It was felt not only in the speeches of adequate participants in the debates on Ukraine but virtually in everything. Strasbourg’s usual calm betrayed anxiety and unmistakable perplexity over what to do next – with the war, with Ukraine and Russia and with the entire world

The outcome of the so-called referendum in Crimea and “the illegal annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation therefore have no legal effect and are not recognised by the Council of Europe”, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) stated on Wednesday, April,9th, in an resolution adopted at the end of an urgent debate.

With a 2/3 majority, PACE adopts the Resolution on Ukraine in Strasbourg today

If starships are ever built, it will be in the far future. But that does not deter the intrepid band of scientists who are thinking about how to do it

The PACE Resolution on keeping political and criminal responsibility separate provides the legal foundation for the prevention of political vendettas in the future, despite the fact that it does not mention Ukraine

Thorbjørn Jagland, Council of Europe Secretary General, and Jean-Claude Mignon, President of the Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) have welcomed Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych’s pardon of former Interior Minister Yuri Lutsenko, is stated on the Council of Europe official website.

PACE’s failure to recognize Azerbaijani political prisoners creates problems for their counterparts in Ukraine

Impact events have greatly changed our planet, including the territory of contemporary Ukraine

René Rouquet, PACE vice president, discussed with The Ukrainian Week whether international organizations can realistically be expected to impose sanctions on election riggers and whether Party of Regions representatives will again join the socialist faction at the PACE winter session to be held on 21-25 January in Strasbourg.

Andreas Gross headed the PACE observation mission for the October 2012 parliamentary election in Ukraine. Before PACE publishes its official report on the Ukrainian election on November 12, Mr. Gross shared his opinion with The Ukrainian Week.

Andreas Gross, head of the PACE observers delegation to Ukraine and Chairman of the PACE Social Democratic Group told The Ukrainian Week about PACE’s evaluation of the election situation in Ukraine.

PACE Monitoring Committee Co-Rapporteurs have once again visited Ukraine where they were finally allowed to see Yuriy Lutsenko and talk to the Prosecutor General. In an interview with The Ukrainian Week, Mailis Reps, Co-Rapporteur of the Monitoring Committee and an Estonian MP, shares her impressions of a meeting with Lutsenko and others and adverse trends she spotted in Kyiv.

If you can't win over an opponent, try to distort what he says. Apparently, Party of Regions member Serhiy Kivalov has been following that motto as he tells Ukrainians in his numerous interviews that the president of GRECO, Marin Mrčela, the Council of Europe’s Group of States Against Corruption, allegedly opposes the decriminalization of Articles 364 and 365 of the Criminal Code under which Yulia Tymoshenko and Yuriy Lutsenko were sentenced.

Luca Volontè chairs the European People’s Party, the biggest political group in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). In his interview with The Ukrainian Week, Mr. Volontè evaluates the verdict in former minister Lutsenko’s case and suggests possible sanctions against Ukraine if the latter continues to ignore the CoE’s recommendations

Andreas Gross criticized the actions of the Party of Regions, a political partner of the group he heads, in his interview with The Ukrainian Week

PACE is ready to impose sanctions against Ukraine unless it complies with PACE’s recommendations regarding the persecution of former top officials. PACE passed the respective amendments to its Resolution on Ukraine at the January 26 session Photo: Roman Malko

Although the conclusion of the PACE resolution on Ukraine contains a paragraph, which in principle allows the imposition of sanctions, none of the heads of this international organization are actually ready to define such possibility.

The Council of Europe reports look discouragingly similar

Mikael Lyngbo: Ukraine has decent legislation,but gaps in procedural process

Andres Herkel: 'The problem of Ukrainian politics consists of the perception that deputies' money is more important than their personal traits.'

The Draft PACE Resolution outlines the problems with democracy in Ukraine, but does not provide for any sanctions

The functioning of democratic institutions in Ukraine

PACE has declassified the report on Ukraine up for discussion on 26 January in Strasbourg. The Ukrainian Week posts the excerpts from the document

What are the moral values of the West? To what extent can European values be betrayed in the name of promulgating them?

The PACE remains the important place for the issues related to Ukraine

The European Council is a place where everybody comes in pursuit of his or her own truth and almost surely finds both proponents and opponents. Is this about the pluralism of discourses or the scattering of actions? Apparently, about everything at the same time

The position of non-democratic forces at the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly keeps it from fulfilling its fundamental functions of protecting human rights and the rule of law to the full extent

Looking at PACE President Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, one realises it is naïve to hope that politicians who easily find a common language with authoritarian regimes will unreservedly commit themselves to protecting human rights

The Alcantara Launch Center is so exotic a project that the Ukrainian president has a hard time pronouncing its name. The Latin American passions raging around the Ukrainian-Brazilian joint venture