Stop the Untouchables. Justice for Sergei Magnitsky.

Russian Riled By Parliament

Wall Street Journal

Members of the European Parliament may struggle sometimes to get their voice heard inside the European Union, but they’re doing a good job of riling their Russian counterparts.

Alexei Pushkov, chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the state Duma, contrasted the “realistic pragmatic approach” from the European Commission to the relationship with Russia to that it has with “the ideological institutions like the European Parliament.”

“There are quite a few people in the European Parliament who think the more they take decisions that irritate Russia the best it is for Europe. I’m not of this opinion. There is some kind of ideological wave which is unfurling over Europe, and it’s a very negative wave,” Mr. Pushkov told a group of academics and journalists in Moscow.

On Tuesday, the parliament adopted a recommendation calling on EU governments to implement sanctions on a list of officials responsible for the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a subsequent judicial cover-up and for the ongoing harassment of his mother and wife. The parliament recommended banning those people from entry into the EU, freezing their assets in the EU, and called on Russia to launch an independent investigation into his death.