Council of Europe Establishes New Monitoring Rules for New Member
States to Enhance Cooperation
PARIS, November 14, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --
In an effort to enhance cooperation among its member states, the
Council of Europe Wednesday
decided to establish new rules to its monitoring procedure, while
opting for a better division of labour between its
institutions.
After discussing possible modalities for enhanced co-operation
with the Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly of the
Council of Europe - the
continent's bastion of human rights composed of 47 member states
representing 800 million European citizens - adopted with an
overwhelming majority a "Letter of Cooperation" which aims to
encourage dialogue and avoid bad sentiments between its member
states.
"This is a very constructive method to work with new member
states and will bring an end to the 'big brother' approach of the
old member states towards the new members," said MP Elkhan Suleymanov from Azerbaijan, a country that is subject to a
Monitoring report in January
2013.
The Council of Europe has a
special monitoring procedure to observe the level of human rights
and democracy in its new member states. Currently, 10 countries are
covered by such monitoring, including Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia
and Herzegovina, Georgia,
the Republic of Moldova,
Montenegro, the Russian Federation, Serbia and Ukraine. Bulgaria, Monaco, the former Yugoslav Republic of
Macedonia and Turkey are engaged in a post-monitoring
dialogue in an effort to ensure their full respect for democracy,
the rule of law and the protection of human rights.
Previously, the procedure followed consisted of the referral of
a recommendation by the Assembly to the Committee of Ministers, the
Council of Europe's executive
body, which was then formally involved in the process, creating
frictions, formal distrust and an excess of administration.
According to the new rule, the Committee of the Ministers'
involvement will now only be voluntary, where they will be asked to
follow-up on the monitoring report with a "Letter of Cooperation"
together with the co-rapporteurs.
"This Letter of Cooperation is informal and not compulsory and
thus starts from a principle of good intentions and will generate
positive effects," said Suleymanov, who added that he is now
confident that the Resolution on Azerbaijan will not be accompanied by a
negatively inspired formal Recommendation.
During the debate, the Chair of the Monitoring Committee,
Andres Herkel, called for the
monitoring reports to be accompanied by a draft recommendation and
draft resolution. However, this approach was not endorsed by member
states, which preferred more flexible working methods to build
confidence and mutual respect between member states.
Only in last October 2011, the
Council of Europe was split by the
monitoring report on Russia, whose
accompanying draft recommendation was rejected following a lively
debate about big countries versus small countries, and old
countries versus new countries. The new informal "Letter of
Cooperation" is expected to create a more constructive environment
to tackle problems in new member states while enhancing dialogue
and cooperation.
"Today in Paris a huge positive
step was made in building confidence and mutual respect between
single member states under monitoring and the Council of
Europe," Suleymanov said.