Posts Tagged ‘Herman Van Rompuy’
Tough Talks Expected At EU-Russia Summit
President Vladimir Putin will meet with European Union leaders in Brussels on Friday for a pre-Christmas summit, but the mood will hardly be festive.
Disputes involving visas, trade and energy have cast a shadow over EU-Russia relations in recent months, giving both sides tough issues to discuss. More broadly, the Europeans are expected to voice concern about the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent, while Moscow’s stance toward Europe is cooling following its recent foreign-policy emphasis on Eurasia.
“I have no high expectations of this summit,” said George SchЪpflin, a member of the European Parliament from Hungary’s conservative Fidesz party.
Schopflin said feelings among Brussels officials toward Moscow had definitely cooled over the past months.
“There is considerable unease about human rights,” he said by telephone.
In a highly critical motion passed last week, the European Parliament demanded that Russia end “politically motivated persecutions, arrests and detentions” among opposition members.
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European MPs call for international enquiry into Magnitsky affair
26.04.12 @ 18:13
BY ANDREW RETTMAN
BRUSSELS – Sixty nine MPs from across Europe have called for an international enquiry into the death of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The deputies – who hail mostly from EU countries, but also Croatia, Iceland, Norway, Serbia and Switzerland – signed the motion at the human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe (CoE), in Strasbourg on Wednesday (25 April).
If the council’s steering group at its meeting on Friday gives the green light, the motion will trigger an in-depth investigation on the model of previous enquiries into CIA renditions, organ smuggling in Kosovo and death squads in Belarus.
“The competent authorities have … failed to properly investigate and prosecute those responsible for Mr Magnitsky’s death,” the motion says.
“For the sake of its own credibility and that of the Russian Federation, the [CoE] should now engage in co-operation with Russia, through the preparation of a dedicated report, in order to fully elucidate this landmark case.”
The man behind the initiative, Dutch centre-right MP Pieter Omtzigt, said the level of political support for his proposal “suggests the truly emblematic nature of the Magnitsky case.”
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EU urges action over Russian lawyer’s death
By Catherine Belton in Moscow
Herman Van Rompuy, European Council president, has called on Dmitry Medvedev to bring to a “credible” close an investigation into the death in jail of Sergei Magnitsky, the anti-corruption lawyer, before his term as Russian president expires.
Calling the case “emblematic” for “the state of the rule of law and judiciary” in Russia, Mr Van Rompuy said in a letter, dated April 18, to the Russian president and seen by the Financial Times, that bringing the investigation to “credible and thorough conclusion before the end of your term would be of symbolic relevance and send a very important signal for the future of Russia”.
Mr Medvedev came to power pledging to crack down on corruption and to boost the independence of the courts. But critics say the lack of progress in investigating Magnitsky’s death is symbolic of the president’s inability to take his pledges beyond the level of rhetoric over his four-year term. Mr Medvedev is due on May 7 to hand over the presidency to Vladimir Putin, his mentor who as prime minister had continued to be seen as Russia’s paramount leader.
The official investigation into Magnitsky’s death is due to be completed on April 24, more than two years after he died in jail in November 2009, sparking an international outcry. His death came more than a year after he alleged that a circle of interior ministry and tax ministry officials had conspired to defraud the Russian budget through a $230m tax fraud scam.
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