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The YABLOKO party, the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats
for Europe (ALDE), Swedish People's Party in Finland and the
Swedish International Liberal Centre (SILC) held in Helsinki
a seminar entitled "The Future of EU-Russia Relations:
the Liberal View".
The seminar was attended by 250 people from Russia, Finland
and other European countries - politicians, civil society
activists, political scientists, experts, journalists and
students. Representatives of Russian non-governmental organisations
(GOLOS, the Moscow Helsinki Group), and independent press
("Novaya Gazeta") that were subject to increasing
pressure from the authoritarian government were also invited
to the seminar.
The European Union was represented by Carl Haglund, Minister
of Defence of Finland and leader of the Swidish Peoples Party,
Kristiina Ojuland, MEP, and Nils Torvalds, MEP, Astrid Thors,
member of the Finnish Parliament and Vice-President of ALDE
and Martin Angeby, Secretary-General of the Swedish International
Liberal Centre.
Grigory Yavlinsky, founder and one of YABLOKOs leaders, delivered
a key report "Russia in Ten Years." Valery Borschev,
Chairman of YABLOKOs Human Rights Faction and member of the
Moscow Helsinki Group, and Galina Mikhaleva, Secretary of
YABLOKOs Political Committee, participated in panel discussions
on human rights in Russia, and trade and economic relations
between Russia and the EU.
Grigory Yavlinsky stressed in his speech that only cooperation
and integration of Russia and the EU will allow both the sides
to take a decent place in the world of the 21st century, and
give them the opportunity to compete with the North American
and Asian world economic growth centers in the nearest perspective.
According to YABLOKOs leader, the main obstacles for Russias
integration into Europe are Russias domestic problems, such
as "primitive authoritarianism", corruption and
"deformation of the principle of freedom of conscience".
"The primitive authoritarianism does not allow the country
to develop, does not leave to the nest generation any opportunity
for self-realisation and limits the area of respect and human
freedom," Grigory Yavlinsky noted. He also expressed
his confidence that the indicator for real changes in Russia
would be overcoming of Bolshevism and Stalinism, without which
any movement towards Europe would be impossible. Yavlinsky
said that the key political issue in Russia was formation
of a meaningful alternative to the present policies of the
regime, and YABLOKO considers formation of such an alternative
be its main task. Looking from this point of view at the position
of the European Union and European democrats, Yavlinsky stressed
the importance of deeper understanding for Europe "with
whom it deals in Russia". YABLOKOs leader noted that
the hopes laid on leftist populists and former officials from
Russian nomenklatura, and called Europeans to pay more attention
to the developments in Russias civil society.
Yavlinsky also spoke in defense of Russian NGOs that were
subject to persecution in Russia and pledged full support
on behalf of YABLOKO for such organizations as GOLOS, the
Moscow Helsinki Group and the Memorial.
Valery Borschev, one of the key participants in the discussion
on "Human rights and the New Protective Legislation:
What the Position of the EU Should Be" told about a civil
investigation of the circumstances of death of Sergei Magnitsky,
which helped to draw attention of Russian and the world public
to this tragedy. Valery Borschev stressed that the investigation
was only possible due to the action of the law "On public
control on the observance of human rights in the places of
detention," he also noted that the YABLOKO party and
its faction in the State Duma had been seeking to adopt this
law from late 1990s. Valery Borschev also spoke about the
need for the Russian and the European politicians to adhere
to the principles of the Helsinki Final Act of 1975. According
to him, a withdrawal from the principles set in this document
presented not only a Russian, but also a European problem.
Lilia Shibanova representing the NGO GOLOS (Voice) informed
the participants of the discussion about the persecution of
non-governmental civic organisations with the help of the
"law on the foreign agents." Olga Bobrova, member
of the editorial board of "Novaya Gazeta", stressed
that the discussion of the recent repressive was very important,
but it should not reduce attention to the long-standing systemic
problems complicating the development of civil society and
a free press, such as the dependence of the Russian regional
press from the local authorities.
Galina Mikhaleva
Galina Mikhaleva, in her speech in the panel "Trade and
Economic Relations: What Further Integration Is Desirable?
provided a detailed analysis of the development of Russian-European
economic relations in the past decade and made a conclusion
about the need to return from the policies of solving specific
issues to policies of development of relations between Russia
and the EU on the basis of common values.
The seminar also paid considerable attention to the abolishing
of visa barriers between Russia and the EU. The participants
of the seminar emphasised that application of visa restrictions
as an instrument of pressure on officials violating human
rights in Russia was not in contradiction with the strategic
course towards facilitatation of entry to the EU for a broad
range of Russian citizens with a view to a complete abolishing
of visas.
Anna-Lena Lauren, Moscow correspondent of Hufvudstadsbladet
Kristiina Ojuland, Member of the European Parliament
Astrid Thors, ALDE Party Vice president, Member of Parliament
Carl Haglund, Minister of Defence and SFP Party Chair
From left to right: Amanda Lovkvist, Moderator and Deputy
Secretary General of SILC,
Lilia Shibanova, Executive Director of GOLOS, Valery Borschyov,
Member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, Co-Chair of YABLOKOs
Human Rights Faction, Olga Bobrova, Member of Editorial Board
of Novaya Gazeta, and Sascha Tamm, Liberales Institut, Friedrich-Naumann-Stiftung
fur die Freiheit.
See also:
Russia-EU
Relations
The seminar page
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