EU-Russia Summit: The racist remarks of Putin. The EU: no comment.

Brussels, 22 November 2002.

At the last EU-Russia summit, held in Brussels on 11 November, the Council did not use its own services, as is the normal custom, to provide translation from Russian to the community languages of the remarks of the invited party, that is the President and the delegation of the Russian Federation. Strangely, in fact, it was the interpreters of the invited party who translated to and from the Russian language.

Moreover, during the press conference organised at the end of the summit Mr Putin made clearly racist, insulting and even threatening remarks to a journalist from the EU, stating in particular:

"If you want to go all the way and become a Muslim radical and are ready to get circumcised, I invite you to Moscow. We are a multi-confessional country, we have experts in this field, too. I will recommend that they carry out the operation in such a way that nothing grows back."

These remarks were not translated by the Russian interpreters and were not made public in Europe until after they had been reported by the Russian media.

Question from Olivier Dupuis, Secretary of the Transnational Radical Party and Member of the European Union, to the Council:

"Given that a long-established diplomatic tradition, both in the member states and in the institutions of the Union, requires that translation into the language or languages of the host country or institution should be provided by its own services, all the more so for a meeting as important as the EU-Russian Summit, what reasons led the Council to infringe this sacrosanct and healthy rule regulating international relations?

Moreover, has the Council made a formal protest to the Russian authorities and to the International Association of Conference Interpreters (AIIC) calling on them to punish this manifest violation by the Russian interpreters of professional rules, in particular the rule that requires them to translate all remarks made? Finally, what conclusions has the Council drawn with regard to the racist, offensive, and even threatening nature of the remarks made by the President of the Russian Federation during the press conference held on 11 November in Brussels?"

From a press release of the Transnational Radical Party.