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Andrea Rigoni: Restoring Special Guest status in PACE for Belarus should not be viewed as gift

The expected decision to restore Special Guest status in the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) for Belarus should not be viewed as a gift, Andrea Rigoni, PACE’s rapporteur on Belarus, said in an exclusive interview with BelaPAN on Monday.

On May 26, PACE’s Political Affairs Committee voted to restore Special Guest status in PACE for a delegation from Belarus, which was suspended in 1997. The Assembly is expected to consider the issue on June 23.

“Granting this status has been made dependent on examinations for compliance with the Council of Europe’s standards,” Mr. Rigoni said. “My report specifies certain criteria for the Belarusian government with regard to the democratization of the country. In particular, we suggest respecting fundamental democratic values such as freedom of association, freedom of the press and freedom of expression, as well as declaring a moratorium on the death penalty and revising Belarus’ electoral regulations.”

“All this process is subject to monitoring, which will be carried out by PACE’s Political Affairs Committee and Subcommittee on Belarus and involve both members of Belarus’ National Assembly and opposition politicians,” Mr. Rigoni said.

“My report sets a period of one year for verifying progress in this direction,” Mr. Rigoni said. “And these are not empty words, as the Council of Europe and PACE want to see specific results. In a year, Belarus’ Special Guest status may be cancelled or extended depending on the findings of the examination.”

Mr. Rigoni also pointed out that if PACE decided to restore the status, that would mean that not only members of the National Assembly but also a delegation of Belarus’ opposition forces would be invited to PACE sessions.

PACE will also continue to follow developments regarding the 1999-2000 high-profile disappearances, Mr. Rigoni said. If Belarus gets Special Guest status, “this will give us leverage to press for investigating those cases,” he noted.

According to Mr. Rigoni, the new policy of the Council of Europe regarding Belarus suggests that the organization “is looking for new ways of influencing the situation.” “We saw that the isolation of Belarus, the de facto self-isolation on the part of the Belarusian authorities, did not bring any good to the nation,” he said. “The situation has in fact been frozen for a decade. We believe that the time has come to act more actively so that the voice of the Council of Europe will be heard in Belarus and the realization of the need to respect human rights and the principles of a rule-of-law state will grow in the country. We want to push the Belarusian government to establish a constructive and productive dialogue.”

Mr. Rigoni described the opening of a CoE information point in Minsk later in the day as one of the steps toward rapprochement between the Council of Europe and Belarus. “It will be a small center for the time being, but if we restore the Special Guest status, we’ll be able to ask for the establishment of a large CoE office in Minsk, that is, to increase the presence of the organization in Belarus so that people will be able to learn more about the CoE,” he said.

Belarus’ national legislature held Special Guest status in PACE between September 1992 and January 1997. The status was suspended in 1997 as a consequence of a November 1996 constitutional referendum, which the CoE found to be undemocratic, as well as restrictions on democratic freedoms such as freedom of expression under the rule of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka.
Shortly after that, Belarus’s application to join the Council of Europe was frozen, and it remains the only European nation that is not a member of the organization.

Special Guest status was created by PACE in the 1990s to help countries meet the conditions to become full members of the Council of Europe. It enables parliamentarians to take part in the Assembly’s activities, but without the right to vote.