By Oksana PANCHENKO, The Day
Ukraine's membership in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
(PACE) has not been suspended. PACE agreed to grant Ukraine important concessions:
the new wording of the Assembly's resolution only asserts that Ukraine
will face tough sanctions if it does not show "fundamental progress" by
June in fulfilling the obligations it has undertaken.
While debating the Ukrainian issue, PACE also elected Borys Oliynyk
one of its vice-presidents, which is another manifestation of the Assembly's
loyalty to Ukraine. However, one should not hope that the Council of Europe
is only striving to formally receive "payments on old loans." Speaker Tunne
Kelam from Estonia noted that Ukraine was to have adopted new criminal,
criminal procedural, civil, and civil procedural codes as well as a new
law on political parties within one year after joining the CE. Speaker
Anne Severinsen said that Ukraine has problems with the freedom of expression
(journalists are sometimes intimidated and murdered), the Minister of Internal
Affairs of Ukraine has not yet submitted to PACE a report on police brutality,
while the state administration in some cities supersedes local representative
bodies. Speakers did not leave unnoticed, in particular, the removal of
Leonid Kosakivsky from office, the ambivalent position of Kyiv's current
mayor, some contradictory articles of the Crimean Constitution, and the
notorious events in Yalta. CE experts will conduct the next monitoring
of Ukraine before its April session. It is also evident that the Council
of Europe does not intend to isolate Ukraine, especially on the eve of
presidential elections. It is noteworthy that in the course of discussions
a consensus was reached for the first time within Ukraine's motley parliamentary
delegation.
Strasbourg






