Brussels

During his January visit to Brussels, Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to put in their place not only European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, but also the entire Western world.

Russia's leader used a whole range of time-honored phrases to make the point that one should not interfere with the internal affairs of a sovereign state. Europeans had long anticipated that discussions with Putin would be complex. The EU-Russia summit was reduced to just a few hours, and the official dinner was canceled. It was hard to imagine that after tensions about Ukraine, Putin, Van Rompuy, and Barroso could enjoy together waterzooï and moules-frites, washed down with bière blonde.

Although not on the level of the Cold War, the air was still cool. Van Rompuy warned that the “numerous” "differences" between Brussels and Moscow would need to be dealt with. The EU blames Moscow for holding the former Soviet republics in a stranglehold. In a telephone conversation with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov expressed the Kremlin’s discontent that the EU is "pressuring" Ukraine and "reacting inappropriately."

Lavrov was not involved in the closed-door meeting in Brussels; Barroso and Van Rompuy talked to Putin privately. But even before this summit, European diplomats were saying that no "miracles are to be expected from this meeting." And no miracles happened. Initially, Putin declared during a press conference in Brussels that Russia would keep its promise to allocate $15 billion in aid "to the Ukrainian people" regardless of who composed the government. A few days later, however, the Russian president changed his mind—or rather, formally speaking, Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev changed his mind, and Putin "agreed."

Brussels is convinced that the crisis in Ukraine could have been avoided in the absence of imperial behavior by Moscow. The Kremlin meddled in Ukraine’s talks about a potential association agreement with the EU in Vilnius. The Euromadian protesters agree with Brussels. One may recall that Armenia also “refused” to join the Eastern Partnership with the EU in favor of membership in the Customs Union with Russia.

Despite the difficulties in understanding each other, Russia continues to insist on a visa facilitation agreement with the EU. However, in its December report, the European Commission clearly identified the problems that Moscow must solve if it wants the dream of visa-free travel to become a reality. Not the least on this list are problems with human rights and corruption in Russia.

Strasbourg

While the talk in Brussels was about Ukraine, in Strasbourg the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe approved a draft resolution and the findings of an independent report authored by the Swiss Member of Parliament Andreas Gross on the Sergei Magnitsky case. Magnitsky, a young Russian lawyer,  alleged in 2009 that Russian officials were involved in the theft of millions of dollars from the Russian budget. He ultimately ended up in prison, where he died. After his death, Magnitsky was posthumously found guilty of fraud in a Russian court.

Gross worked on the report and the text of the resolution for more than a year. As a result, the report’s recommendations and conclusions did not come as a surprise to European lawmakers. People involved in the death of the Russian lawyer have still not been punished four years after his death, and the massive fraud that Magnitsky denounced has not yet been investigated. “But what are the reasons for this cover-up? This question still remains unanswered,” Gross’s report notes. As a last resort, the Swiss parliamentarian called for the introduction of targeted sanctions against Russian officials. PACE agreed with this recommendation.

Gross said he was pleased with the voting result: “On the one hand, it was a good debate and a good result; people understood the message that we tried to help Russia, to do a favor for Russia. Everybody can make mistakes, and every country can make mistakes. Big countries can make big mistakes, but the point is that you have to learn from [them]. And you have to punish those who were cruel, who were unjust and let die the person who did not do anything wrong. But on the other hand, I was a little bit disappointed that some of [our] Russian colleagues seem to blame . . . Mr. Browder, whom Mr. Magnitsky was working for. That's why Mr. Browder is trying to prevent the case [from being] forgotten. That makes Russia very angry. And it has made the United States react. And now Russians think that every remark concerning Mr. Magnitsky is paid [for] by the Americans. And these are problems that we [cannot] overcome yet. We still have a lot to do.”

Dutch lawmaker Pieter Omtzigt noted that “Russia had four years to conduct a thorough investigation. And if Russia has not done that, EU targeted sanctions will be a good option.”

“Blaming Russia that God created mortal humans—sometimes [death] happens suddenly, and people die not only in prison, but also at a resort—is unfair, at the very least,” claimed Russian State Duma member Tamerlan Agouzarov, who used to work in the Russian Prosecutor's Office. European deputies considered his comparison of Russian prison to a resort inappropriate. The day before the PACE vote, Magnitsky’s mother revealed photos of her son’s body with torture marks.

The resolution approving Gross’s report received 151 votes at the Assembly. Twenty-five voted against it. The Russian deputies in PACE had good company in the Azerbaijani delegation, which also voted against the resolution. Despite the efforts of Russia and Azerbaijan,  “the two leading democracies,” members of the European Parliament, in response to the PACE resolution, will be recommending that their governments follow the United States, which has already adopted a Magnitsky law.

Russia's representative to PACE, Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the Duma Committee on international affairs, announced that “the contents of the report are very controversial; no one in the bureau has defended it, no one has seen it.” It is strange that Russian deputies have not seen a text that directly concerns Russia. “My report, 50 pages long, had been ready since last September, and all MPs and every single European citizen could have read it online,” said Gross. “The small addendum—three pages—was voted [on] unanimously in December and was presented on Monday before the final debate. Our Russian colleagues took part in the debate on the addendum and did read it.” He further added: “Pushkov tried to prevent the addendum [from being] discussed and decided, but failed twice, very clearly, in two different committees, 22 votes against 2. I spoke with dozens of Russian colleagues, ambassadors, [and] civil activists and included many of their comments in my report. But I did not consider opinions which, as I am convinced, are not truthful, do not reflect the reality, contradict the more credible opinions, or were just delivered to me in order to misinform or mislead me. I cross-checked and double-checked all the facts to get closer to the truth. Russian ministers and high-profile officials refused to answer my questions. Some of their names are mentioned in my report.”

Meanwhile, the Magnitsky vote in Strasbourg was linked to another story. In 2014, two candidates were running for the PACE presidency: Anne Brasseur (Luxembourg; Alliance of Democrats and Liberals for Europe [ALDE]) and Robert Walter (United Kingdom; European Democrats Group [EDG]). The Russian delegation supported Walter, whose candidacy came out of nowhere, since Brasseur is known for her harsh statements on human rights violations and corruption.

Before the vote, Pushkov sent an email to the ALDE lawmakers explaining that the candidacy of Bob Walter was not presented as mere opposition to that of Anne Brasseur. “Mr. Walter is running as an individual member of the Assembly, not as chairman of the EDG. Moreover, for this reason, he stepped down from his mandate as EDG chairman,” the email said. However, Pushkov failed to mention that after Walter stepped down, he himself became the chairman of the EDG.

Despite this effort, Walter was not elected PACE president. As for Pushkov, he will have to wait another four years to become the PACE president, unless, of course, someone violates the rules of rotation to present an “alternative” candidate.