Yekaterinburg - The union’s high representative for foreign affairs, Baroness Catherine Ashton, has promised to “enquire” about the case of Sergei Magnitsky

EU Panders to Putin, Shelves Human Rights

by Vladimir Kara-Murza

On Monday and Tuesday, Yekaterinburg, Europe’s easternmost city, hosts the bilateral EU-Russia summit attended by the respective leaders—EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy, EU Commission President José Manuel Barroso, and Russian President Vladimir Putin. According to Van Rompuy, “there remains a lot of untapped potential to deepen our strategic partnership in all areas,” and the summit will focus in particular on “modernization, visas and mobility, and trade” as well as “measures to stimulate economic growth and jobs.” One of the main issues at the summit will be the negotiation of a new bilateral agreement between the EU and Russia.

The Kremlin shares Brussels’ optimism regarding the summit: Vladimir Chizhov, Moscow’s EU representative, has spoken of “a unique historical chance for our cooperation to move to a new level,” stressing his expectation that human rights will not come up for discussion to avoid “making the atmosphere toxic.”

It is likely that the Kremlin’s wish will be granted. The only reference to human rights in the official EU press release is the (literally) last sentence, which—rather ambiguously and with no commitments for Yekaterinburg—states that “the situation regarding human rights and the rule of law in Russia are regularly discussed at summit meetings.” Even more puzzling was Van Rompuy’s mention of “common values that we share [with Russia] as members of the Council of Europe and the OSCE.” The EU president has neglected to mention that these values—which Russia, as a European country and a full member of the aforementioned organizations, is indeed bound by—are systematically and flagrantly abused by the man he will be shaking hands with in Yekaterinburg.

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