Photo: Mr. Alexander Shishlov, Mr. Grigory
Yavlinsky, Mrs. Mailis Reps, Mrs. Anne Brasseur. ALDE Group
meeting, 26 April 2010
It was 65 years ago that the World War II ended. The scope
of the disaster was so devastating that the entire world learned
the lesson and found ways for reconciliation of the recent
foes and creation of international mechanisms for peaceful
development of the mankind. Responsibility and intellect of
politicians, experts and public leaders took over narrow national
and corporate interests allowing to formulate common approaches
to the construction of a new Europe and a new world. After
the war, the UN and the Council of Europe were established
and the integration of the European democratic states leading
to today’s European Union began. The Liberal International
was created, and its Oxford Manifesto of 1947 proclaimed liberal
values to be a must for future development. Freedom and democracy,
human rights and rule of law became key components of the
new world order. In spite of the fact that half of Europe
remained under Stalin’s totalitarian dictatorship, progress
was irreversible. This value-orientation proved to be successful
as the communist regimes collapsed in the USSR and Eastern
Europe.
However, the fall of the Berlin Wall did not bring about
the understanding of the need for a new European strategy
for the 21st century. Today, when we enjoy far more comfortable
conditions than after the end of the Second World War, when
considerably better assets and modern technologies are available,
Europe and the world still fail to find an adequate response
to new challenges. The rise of extremism, nationalism, international
crime and terrorism present a real threat to the European
security. Crisis in the global finance and economy, ecology
and healthcare, population growth and migration can reverse
the progress.
We believe that all these new problems, albeit different,
have one common root: dominance of the Realpolitik, narrow
pragmatism and short-term material interests over universal
humanitarian values. It is not about moralising. There is
a real practical need for the governments to observe a minimal
set of requirements concerning public goods and the rules
of fair political competition (even if it is only words and
declarations at the beginning). It is vitally important to
build a system that would prevent violations of minimal moral
norms by the governments. And this is, by the way, an important
aspect for overcoming the present economic crisis.
Although such a “moral” and “ethical” approach to politics
is not new, it has been as a rule considered as secondary
and often ignored, which led to serious economic and political
problems, and even wars. However, no regime in the 19th and
20th centuries – except for the rogue states – dared to publicly
challenge the moral approach. The victory over Nazism consolidated
the moral approach, which brought about and secured the victory
of the Euro-Atlantic world in the competition against communism.
Politics remained separated from business, and business players
in their pursuit of profits did not make any steps to destroy
or disrupt the system. As to totalitarian and authoritarian
corporate regimes, they were not allowed to participate in
the fully-fledged competition in the free world, or to be
integrated into the Western financial system. At the time,
the Western governments felt obvious military, political and
economic threat. Now, when the military and political threats
seem to disappear or weaken, one can get the illusion that
there is no more moral or economic threat to the European
system of values. We also observe how prosily, virtually conflict-free
and unemotionally the states governed by corporate culture
turn into important world players while the businesses of
their leaders increasingly merge with their political power.
Before such systems affect the social structure, they manifest
themselves in political morals. For example, political techniques
used by the Russian leaders (and not only Russian) for the
past ten years may be unable to override the political practices
employed by Washington, London or Paris, but they affect them
nonetheless. That is where we think the problem of political
morals resides.
The Council of Europe as institution based on values of human
rights can and should play a considerably larger role both
in strengthening the moral basis of politics and in confronting
new threats. It is of special importance to us, Russian liberals,
since we see that the Russian government, preoccupied with
suppressing political opposition, emerging civil society and
democracy, builds a bureaucratic police state, creates artificial
“pocket” political parties and conducts elections in such
a way that its victory is guaranteed. At present, elections
in Russia are held under tough governmental control and their
results are falsified. Consequently, there is no independent
parliament in Russia. Russia also lacks independent judiciary
which could protect the citizens from criminals and corrupted
bureaucracy. Political censorship has been de facto introduced
at the national television where any discussion on important
political and social issues is prohibited.
We also see that the existing European mechanisms are unable
to help Russian citizens to efficiently protect their rights.
A group of privileged individuals has formed in Russia, and
is rapidly turning into a “superior caste” with unlimited
rights. In addition, the principle of equality of all before
the law does not prevent Russian authorities from conducting
domestic discriminatory policies towards specific social groups.
We have been observing freedom shrink in our country from
year to year, democratic elections and independent press disappear,
kidnappings and murders in the North Caucasus continue and
serious crisis potential accumulate, while the Council of
Europe was simply watching and, unfortunately, such a passive
“watching” approach is not applied to Russia only.
We think that it is up to democrats, people with liberal
views, to start the fight for bringing the European politics
back from shortsighted pragmatism and Realpolitik to the moral
values.
YABLOKO proposes to start formulating a new European agenda
for the 21st century. We are aware of the scope and the complexity
of such a task, however, the opposite would result in a relative
decline of Europe compared to North America and Asia –continents
that in 20 years will obviously turn into centres of economic
growth and, consequently, global political influence. If Europe
does not want to be left on the roadside and lose its competitive
economic capacity and its status of equal political partner,
it has to stop resting on its laurels. It’s high time to start
working on a new long-term development strategy in order to
keep reinforcing the post-war European civilization based
on liberal-democratic values and human rights respecting national
cultures and traditions. In our view, this is the only way
to prevent Europe’s sliding towards uncontrollable socio-political
and systemic economic crisis. We are already observing the
symptoms of such a crisis not only in Russia, but also in
other former Soviet republics, such as Ukraine, Belarus and
Moldova or even in some countries of the “old Europe” as,
for example, Greece.
Some of the required initial steps in this direction are
already obvious and can be made by the Council of Europe.
The Council of Europe needs strong analytical institutions
that would considerably raise its competence and allow not
only to analyse but also forecast socio-political trends and
develop preventive measures rather than good wishes. Another
step would be building and improving the instruments of independent
public opinion surveys (especially urgent in Russia and some
other Eastern European countries).
In our opinion, the principles of PACE composition should
be further improved. The Parliamentary Assembly based on delegation
of national MPs proceeds from the idea that all the member-states
have approximately the same (high) democracy level. But this
is not so, and a considerable part of the Council of Europe
population does not yet have free and fair elections and is
deprived of direct links with the European institutions. This
is not strategic and even dangerous. Direct elections to PACE
(or any other European representative body) could be decisive
for such countries’ progress towards modern democracy, rebuilding
of confidence in elections and limiting the power of criminal
bureaucracy.
For Russia the Council of Europe is the key and yet the sole
real bridge to Europe. The most important task for us, Russian
liberals, is to make it broader and stronger.
See also:
The
original
Russia
- EU Relations
YABLOKO’s
Grigory Yavlinsky and Alexander Shishlov discussed the PACE
reform and the Babyev case. yavlinsky.ru. April 26, 2010
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