PACE rejects Ukrainian opposition's idea to consider Ukraine issue under special procedure, says Popesku

Regions Party parliamentary faction MP and Vice President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Ivan Popesku has said that the PACE has rejected a proposal from representatives of the Ukrainian opposition to consider Ukraine-related issue under a special procedure.

"The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe at the final session in Strasbourg did not support the idea of our oppositionists to consider the Ukraine issue according to a special procedure, despite of the fact that some of the partners of our opposition from European People's Party tried to raise the issue," the press service of the Regions Party said, quoting Popesku.

According to him, none of the reports on which relevant resolutions were based included amendments mentioning Ukraine.

"Neither the resolution interpreting the political prisoner notion, nor the resolution on the code of conduct of PACE members [contained such amendments]," Popesku said.

He said this position of PACE was due to its reluctance to get involved in the political battle that is currently taking place in Ukraine. Thus, no one in PACE wants to support one or another political force.

"Even the interview with [Andreas] Gross, head of the PACE observers mission to Ukraine, was sharply criticized by various political forces. They even raised the question of replacing the observation mission head. However, the PACE Bureau saved the position of Gross and warned him that he has no right to give personal evaluations of the election process before the end of elections, as members of the observation mission have to stick to the code of conduct, and not their personal political preferences," Popesku said.

"In turn, we hope that we will manage to conduct the elections at the top level. [We also hope that] the elections will be recognized as fair. Ukraine will take another step towards the removal of monitoring. And we have only one formal condition for the removal of monitoring – [we have to] pass a new law on the prosecutor's office and, of course, hold democratic elections according to European standards," he said.