Accusations fly in EU vote on Russian travel ban

EU Observer

A u-turn by centre-right and centre-left MEPs on whether to seek an EU visa ban on Russian officials linked to the death of lawyer Sergey Magnitsky has prompted accusations about Russian lobbying in the EU parliament.

Deputies in the foreign affairs committee in November endorsed a report on EU human rights policy containing the controversial Magnitsky clause by a crushing majority of 50 votes against nil with two abstentions.

The clause says: “[Parliament] urges the Russian judicial authorities to press ahead with the investigation of the death of Sergey Magnitsky; calls for an EU entry ban for the 60 Russian officials involved in this case and asks the EU law enforcement agencies to co-operate in freezing the bank accounts and other assets of these Russian officials in all EU member states.”

But on the eve of the vote, due to take place in Strasbourg on Thursday (16 December), the centre-right EPP group and the centre-left S&D group are planning to expunge the offending lines, according to German centre-left MEP Knut Fleckenstein, who chairs the EU-Russia inter-parliamentary delegation.

Finnish green MEP Heidi Hautala, who co-introduced the amendment and who chairs the assembly’s human rights sub-committee, told EUobserver that the change is due to Russian campaigning.

“Lobbying and pressuring by the Russian side has been tremendous,” she said. “Failing on this amendment would indeed put seriously in question the parliament’s standing in protection and promotion of human rights around the world.”

Ms Hautala’s side points to the role played by a delegation of Russian MPs who arrived in Strasbourg on Monday for a long-scheduled Parliamentary Co-operation Committee. Unusually, the delegation brought along a group of industry ministry officials and Russian human rights ombudsman Vladimir Lukin, who held a number of informal meetings with MEPs on top of the official event.

The Russian mission to the EU has also been active. Russian diplomat Alexander Khlopiyanov at 1am in the morning Brussels time on Sunday sent an email to MEPs containing dire warnings from the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs unit. “Should the European Parliament accept [the amendment], relations between the Russian Federation and the European Union will be seriously damaged,” it said.

Mr Fleckenstein told this website that attempts to depict the EU-Russia committee visit as lobbying is “nonsense and propaganda.”

He said the change of heart by EPP and S&D deputies is because some MEPs were bamboozled by the over 400 individual amendments proposed to the report back in November: “I know that some colleagues didn’t realise [what they were backing] because it was a big package.”

“This [the sanctions] is not the appropriate approach if you really want to change something. We have to speak, to push again and again,” he added, giving as an example of more useful intervention his plan to discuss Mr Magnitsky at a private dinner with Mr Lukin on Wednesday evening.

Mr Magnitsky, a 37-year-old father-of-two, died in a Russian jail in 2009 after investigating an alleged €175 million embezzlement scam by Russian police. His employer, US firm Hermitage Capital, says he was tortured and murdered. There has been no Russian probe into his death and some of the officials he accused of fraud have been promoted.

Human rights campaigners say the case is proof that the Kremlin has no respect for the rule of law, despite paying lipservice to values in its bid for EU trade and technology-transfer agreements.

Khodorkovsky not in Ashton’s remit?

Campaigners also paint the case of fallen oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky in the same light.

A Moscow court was due to rule on fraud charges against Mr Khodorkovsky on Wednesday but switched the date to 27 December without explanation. The last-minute switch disrupted plans for an international response to the widely-expected guilty verdict in what is seen as another example of political persecution.

In one effort, EU parliament President Jerzy Buzek had on Tuesday in Strasbourg met Mr Khodorkovsky’s mother and published a statement of support. The impact of the meeting was blunted by the date change, however.

Khodorkovsky lawyer Vadim Klyuvgant told EUobserver that most EU and US officials will be on Christmas vacation when the verdict comes: “Of course, holidays make public activity lower.”

For her part, EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton at a debate in Strasbourg on Wednesday promised to create a high-level human rights unit in her External Action Service because rights “are the core of our EU identity and they go to the heart of what we do around the world.”

EU officials told this website that her team is unlikely to comment on the Khodorkovsky verdict because it is not in her “remit,” however.

Another lawyer working for Mr Khodorkovsky, who asked not to be named, said the argument is “ridiculous” in the context of Article 21 of the Lisbon Treaty, which states: “The Union’s action on the international scene shall be guided by the principles which have inspired its own creation, development and enlargement, and which it seeks to advance in the wider world: democracy, the rule of law, the universality and indivisibility of human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for human dignity, the principles of equality and solidarity, and respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter and international law.”

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