Russian's mass media, Poul Nielson refuses to visit Chechnya, EU rejects Shengen visa to Mashkadov.^[19]

Strasbourg, Wednesday 4 April 2001.

From a debate on the results of the European council in Stockholm. Oral intervention by Olivier Dupuis Dupuis.

"Rt. Hon. President, President of the Council, President of the Commission, colleagues, President Prodi has expressed his concern about the state of the press and the mass media in Russia. It seems to me that the President of the Commission is crying over spilt milk. He is crying over something that is the consequence of a policy that he himself has helped to shape.

The policy of the European Union towards Russia is a policy of tolerance, Rt. Hon.

President. What is now happening with the mass media has already happened in Central Asia with those former Soviet states in which Putin is re-establishing a post-colonial policy, a region whose strategic importance the European Union does not seem to see, just as it does not see the strategic importance of the Caucasian region.

I would like to thank President Poettering, who expressed the concern of the PPE group. I would invite him, however, to speak with our colleague Oostlander, who is the author of a report that took the same direction as the policy proposed by the Commission, a policy centred entirely on the fact that the Union must above all ensure gas and oil supplies to Russia, thus neglecting the issue of the construction and consolidation of the rule of law in Russia itself.

Yesterday, Rt. Hon. President, in this very chamber, my colleague Posselt and I asked Commissioner Nielson yet again to come up with a policy for Chechnya, a policy that would at least be humanitarian.

For a year and a half we have been asking Commissioner Nielson to go to Chechnya. On his part Commissioner Nielson continues to repeat that the situation does not allow such a visit.

Yesterday I asked him, since he has expressed this concern, to go to Georgia, to go to Azerbaijan, at least to open hospitals - as the Chechen Health Minister Oumar Khambiev has asked - in these areas, which are not under the direct influence of Russia; at least to allow the Chechens their own health service instead of having to pay thousands of dollars for treatment in Baku. On this point Commissioner Nielson has not replied.

I, Rt. Hon. President, am sick and tired of this, and I ask you formally to withdraw Commissioner Nielson's mandate on humanitarian aid.

Commissioner Nielson is a bureaucrat, Rt. Hon. President: his travel diary is already full up for the next four or five years; he hops about on his little trips to make sure that the Commission's development co-operation policy is carried out, but he is not really concerned with real problems in humanitarian terms. I am not asking you to sack him from the Commission; I am only asking you to withdraw this portfolio and assign it to someone capable of addressing humanitarian problems, someone capable of addressing the issue of Chechnya.

What is happening now in Chechnya is disgraceful. It is no different at all from what has happened in Bosnia, or in Kosovo, things which finally led the Parliament and the European Union, after years and years, to rebel. We must invest in political terms, Mr. President of the Council, Mr. Persson. I would like to see an end to the humiliating conduct of the EU towards members of President Mashkadov's government.^[19]

It is unacceptable that a Minister in Mashkadov's government should have to apply for visas, and should have to do so month after month.*

It is unacceptable that the European Union should not be able to give an unlimited permit to people who you will soon have to visit, who you will have to persuade to get round a table with the Russians. These are our future interlocutors, and the best we can do is to treat them in this humiliating manner. And all this while the Department of State receives Akhmadov, the Chechen Foreign Minister, as it did last week. Territorial integrity is not a theoretical concept; it is a practical concept: a concept that sees integrity as the whole territory which should be safeguarded, not a free hand to do whatever one chooses.

* Webauthor's note: Later, this unexplained "visa refusal policy" will continue. See the link.