Political carve-ups

European Voice

The British Conservatives are managing to sideline themselves and in the process could become embroiled in some political nobbling.

It is easy to mock British Conservatives for their phobias. But their friendships are odd too. In the Council of Europe they are in the oddball European Democrats Group (EDG), along with Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, the Ukrainian Party of Regions (the party of the Viktor Yanukovych regime), and Turkey’s AK Party. The British Tories cannot link up with their natural and historic allies in the mainstream centre-right parties, because these are Europhiles and therefore unspeakable.

This weakens Britain’s influence in Europe. It also increases Russia’s clout. The Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) may sound like a useless talking-shop, but it elects the body’s president and secretary-general. These positions, both up for election this year, set the tone for the Council’s approach on human rights. As the skies darken, this is ever-more important.

In 2008, Russia nearly succeeded in getting Mikhail Margelov elected as the PACE president. An amiable and eloquent bruiser, he has spearheaded the Kremlin’s counter-attack against its Western critics. He nearly won, because it was the EDG’s turn to have the top job (it rotates between the various groupings) and United Russia had persuaded the Tories to support their candidate.

Derailing Margelov’s candidacy involved some hurried bargaining, in which the presidential term was cut to two years, and the rotation between the groups re-jigged. Now the

presidency should go to the liberal ALDE group, whose candidate is Anne Brasseur of Luxembourg. She has made a point of inviting Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Azeri and other opposition members and dissidents to PACE part-sessions. She is backed by the outgoing president and the leaders of other political groups.

But now she is facing an unexpected challenge from a notionally independent candidate, the British delegation leader Bob Walter. Walter has a commendable record of engagement in international affairs. He believes in even-handedness. As an election monitor in the recent Azeri elections, he issued a statement of exemplary tactfulness, praising the “free, fair and transparent” poll on the day, while delicately pointing out that other aspects could be open to further improvement (the ruling party of Azerbaijan is also a member of the EDG, which Walter chairs). He has every right to seek a top job. He argues that as a body which preaches free and fair elections, PACE should fill its top positions by election, not with political carve-ups.

Yet the wide backing for his surprise candidacy suggests someone is out to stop Brasseur. One possibility is France, which detests her for her assaults on Monaco’s sleaze and feudalism. She may also have run foul of machinations surrounding the contest later this year for the Council’s secretary-general. The leading candidate here is the former German justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, detested by the Russians, who may prefer either to give another term to the incumbent, the low-profile Norwegian Thorbjørn Jagland, or to shuffle the serving president, the similarly emollient French backbencher Jean-Claude Mignon, into the job.

Few people have heard of these politicians, even in their own countries. Even fewer know or care about the intricacies of the Council of Europe’s party groupings and internal elections. But that does not mean that these things do not matter. Azerbaijan has done a remarkable job in blunting outside criticism – as the European Stability Initiative’s terrific reports on “caviar diplomacy” show. Russia longs to capitalise on the precedent set by the regime in Baku. I hope that the British Tories will not end up being accomplices, however unwitting, in the nobbling of Europe’s human-rights watchdog.

Edward Lucas writes for The Economist. unshaven girl hairy woman https://zp-pdl.com/how-to-get-fast-payday-loan-online.php https://zp-pdl.com/apply-for-payday-loan-online.php быстрые займы онлайн