Georgian MPs Hail Keeping August War Debates High on PACE Agenda

Georgian senior lawmakers welcomed on June 28 a failure of an attempt “by certain political groups” within Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE) to downgrade debates on consequences of the August war within PACE.
 
“Although PACE President Mevlüt Çavusoglu pledged during his visit to Georgia and promised you [referring to Parliamentary Chairman Davit Bakradze] that Georgia’s issue would not have been discussed without Georgia’s participation and that PACE would have returned to discussion of [August war consequences] only in Autumn, unfortunately, with the initiative of some political groups – and I do not know whether Mr. Çavusoglu was part of this group or not – it was attempted to take a decision through bypassing the Georgian delegation,” MP Mikheil Machavariani, the vice-speaker of the Georgian Parliament, said at a parliamentary session on June 28.

He said that with “active work of the Georgian delegation” and “with the help of Georgia’s friends” within PACE, those groups were not able to take such decision.

On a sideline of PACE session last week, its monitoring committee discussed a proposal, tabled by a lawmaker from Luxembourg, Anne Brasseur, which envisaged closing of a separate file on the August war consequences and redirecting obligations in respect of Georgia and Russia related to the war consequences to these two countries separate respective files, meaning that the obligations raised by PACE through its three resolutions on the August war would still stand, but those obligations would have been discussed separately as part of regular monitoring of Georgia’s and Russia’s broader obligations undertaken before the Council of Europe. The proposal to close the separate file on August war was viewed as an attempt to downgrade debates on the August war in PACE.

The proposal fell one vote short of approval in the monitoring committee on June 23.

In October, 2008 PACE adopted a resolution on consequences of the war, among other things, also calling on Russia to withdraw its recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Since then PACE monitoring committee has been following implementation of the obligations originating from the resolution by Russia and Georgia. Two other resolutions were taken by PACE since then, the most recent one in September, 2009 calling on Russia to fulfill its obligations, imposed upon it by PACE’s January, 2009 and October, 2008 resolutions, before the end of 2009.  In April 2010, PACE was expected to pass fourth resolution, but the process was stalled because of disagreements over the two drafts tabled by co-rapporteurs – one of them blamed by the Georgian delegation for being biased in favor of Moscow.

“I want to appeal the Council of Europe and relevant structures within the Council of Europe that there should be no attempts to decide Georgia-related issues without Georgia’s participation – no matter how good those decisions might be,” MP Machavariani said on June 28.

“Europe remembers very well what the consequences were for small European countries, when decisions were made bypassing those countries themselves,” Davit Bakradze, the parliamentary chairman, said.

“I hope that all the decisions in the Council of Europe about Georgia will be taken with participation of Georgia, with the Georgian side’s consent… We will address this issue this week when Council of Europe Secretary General [Thorbjørn Jagland] visits Tbilisi,” he added.

“We hope that during Mr. Çavusoglu’s upcoming visit to Moscow he will raise, among other issues, the need to implement those resolutions which PACE has adopted in respect of the Russia’s aggression against Georgia… I think that the PACE President’s one of the main task should maximally press on any country – whether it is a large or a small country – to implement a resolution,” MP Petre Tsiskarishvili, leader of the parliamentary majority, said.

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