Baltic states, Ukraine, Georgia disseminate joint statement against Russia in PACE

Delegations of Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania have released a joint statement in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the head of the Ukrainian delegation Elizaveta Yasko said today.

Yasko said the delegations of the five countries have agreed to establish a permanent group Baltic Plus in the PACE.

The aim of the group is to denounce the policy of the annexation of Crimea, to condemn the occupation of eastern Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova. According to Yasko, the next meeting of the group will be held in Kyiv.

On the 70th anniversary of CoE, we see that the standards and values of this institution are in serious danger and the authority of the Parliamentary Assembly has been weakened,'' reads the joint statement of the delegations of the five countries.

The statement says that for 70 years the CoE has defended the rights of millions of people and firmly upholds the values for which the organization was created.

Unfortunately, June 2019 marked the beginning of another nation. During the summer session, the Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE adopted Resolution 2292, which unconditionally restored the Russian delegation’s right to vote and other procedural rights. By doing so, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has turned a blind eye to human rights abductions, illegal occupation and annexation of territories, illegal detention of nationals of member states and the war that the Russian Federation is still waging against its neighbors”,  reads the joint statement of Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Tamar Chugoshvili, first deputy chairman of the Parliament of Georgia, signed the statement on behalf of Georgia.

The five-country statement also speaks about Russia’s barbed wire fences illegally erected by occupying troops on Georgian soil along the occupational line of South Ossetia, and also touches on elections in the so-called occupied regions of Georgia.

Yasko says the CoE has lost its authority over the millions of citizens of the member states.

We invite everyone into our group whose values ​​and commitments are not empty words," Elizaveta Yasko said in a statement.

The delegations from Georgia, Ukraine and the Baltic states did not attend the autumn session of the PACE in protest on September 30.

 A member of the Ukrainian delegation, Oleksiy Honcharenko thanked Georgia for supporting the decision of Ukraine not to take part in the official events of the PACE session.

On June 25, PACE adopted a resolution on changing the nature of the sanctions mechanism and invited Russia to return to work in PACE without restrictions on voting rights.

Representatives of Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania voted against the resolution.