PACE may leave the monitoring of Ukraine

Co-reporter of PACE Monitoring Committee Hanne Severinsen reckons PACE may leave the monitoring of Ukraine.

It will depend on the parliamentary election in March: the very way it will be held.

Северинсен отметила, что важным будет и послевыборный период, когда будет формироваться парламентское большинство и коалиционное правительство.

She stressed the after-election period will be important, too. The parliamentary majority and coalition government will play not the last role in it. Ukraine still has not met certain obligations being a member of the Council of Europe.

Hanne Severisen pointed at some obligations, which must be executed: the court system reform, legal and civil items, the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The main target of PACE monitoring is to set the supreme of the law.

There will be 60 PACE observers coming in Ukraine on the eve of the election.

Having met the representatives of some Ukrainian political parties (SDPU, SPU, Communist Party and the Party of Regions), she concluded that the situation with usage of the administrative resource has been improved since the last election in Ukraine. She also added that the monitoring is not a punishment but a kind of dialogue aimed at democratization of the society.

PACE representatives stated that they did not touch the Gongadze case at the meetings. But the next week, the special envoy of the Parliamentarian Assembly of the Council of Europe will come to engage with this question.