Russia's request for membership of the Council of Europe
Doc. 7443 Addendum IV
2 January 1996
ADDENDUM IV to the REPORT
Effects of Russia's accession on the organisation
Rapporteur: Mr MUEHLEMANN, Switzerland, Liberal, Democratic and Reformers' Group
Link to
Advisory and Control Programme Addendum II Appendix to the high-level Russian message of 18 January 1995 Addendum III Overview of the state of relations between the Council of Europe and the Russian Federation, including the Joint Programme between the Commission of the European Communities and the Council of Europe for strengthening of the federal structure, introduction of human rights protection mechanisms and legal system reform
Effects of Russia's accession on the organisation
(Secretariat memorandum)
As well as finally giving the policy formulated at the Vienna Summit its full significance, Russia's accession should reveal the scale of the challenge which our Organisation — like Europe in general — has taken on, and the scale of the changes to be made if we are to succeed in our task of achieving a greater unity between all the states of a reconciled Europe, based on a common commitment to democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and a common cultural heritage enriched by its diversity, thus contributing to greater security.
Russia's accession is therefore part of a process. In terms of the functioning of the Organisation, it will not so much create any fundamentally new needs as confirm directions already taken and needs already identified in the course of the recent enlargement:
1. In admitting countries in transition as new members, the Council of Europe undertakes to help them continue the work of reform. Assistance for development and the consolidation of democratic security amounts to around 50 million francs a year. However, the size of Ukraine and Russia calls for a stepping up of efforts in this area, which will necessarily involve a large number of partners at all levels of the state and society. With this in mind, the Secretary General has proposed the launching of a new initiative, amounting to around 120 million francs over a period of 30 months, aimed at the countries which were candidates for membership in the spring of this year. As part of this initiative, after recently approving the first section of a joint programme with the Council of Europe concerning Ukraine, the European Union is about to do the same for Russia and commit itself financially on a basis of parity with the Council of Europe.
2. Democratic security requires that all members should attach importance to the honouring of commitments and should be willing to engage in constructive discussion of any difficulties encountered and take any corrective measures which may be needed, with support from the Organisation if necessary. Supplementing the procedure introduced in the Assembly, the Committee of Ministers will undertake an initial monitoring exercise in 1996 on the basis of a factual overview to be submitted to it by the Secretary General, drawing on information available both inside the Organisation (Assembly and CLRAE opinions and reports, expert appraisals, published reports of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, indications provided by the number of applications submitted to the European Court and Commission of Human Rights and the decisions given) and outside it (in particular, the OSCE and the United Nations). It is essential to ensure the full effectiveness of this political monitoring machinery.
Moreover, a considerable increase is to be expected both in the number of cases brought before the judicial protection system for human rights and in the activity of the Committee for the Prevention of Torture. Constant adjustment of the operating resources available to the future single Court of Human Rights, the Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the Social Charter's Committee of Independent Experts should therefore continue to be a high priority.
3. The prospect of the accession of a country as large as Russia naturally raises questions of an institutional nature. A number of these arose, to a lesser degree, in the course of the previous enlargement process.
Some of these questions are discussed below:
a.Principle of equality between member states
Equality between member states is one of the basic principles of the Council of Europe's Statute, embodied in particular in Article 14. Whatever their geographical area, the size of their population or the weight they carry in the political, economic or any other field, the member states have the same rights and obligations. Each has one seat and one vote in the Committee of Ministers. The composition of the delegations to the Parliamentary Assembly and the CLRAE does to some extent take differences of size into account, although no country is represented by more than 18 full members.
b. Question of majorities required for decisions of the Committee of Ministers
It is now acknowledged by the Committee of Ministers that, with the increase in the number of member states, the unanimity rule should be applied in only a small number of cases. The Deputies have therefore decided on a "gentlemen's agreement" under which no delegation will ask for application of the unanimity rule in Article 20a.i of the Statute in order to block the adoption of recommendations to the governments of member states if the majority provided for in Article 20d. of the Statute is obtained. The Deputies have also agreed that they will henceforth adopt replies to the Parliamentary Assembly by the majority provided for in Article 20d., on the understanding that every effort will be made to reach a consensus within a reasonable time.
c. Contributions to the Council of Europe's budgets
It will be recalled that contributions to the Council of Europe's budgets are calculated using a scale updated regularly by the Minister's Deputies on the basis of rules which were recently amended (Resolution (94) 31). The calculations are based on data on Gross Domestic Product and population, the weighting given to the data on Gross Domestic Product being five times that given to the data on population. The calculation of contributions in respect of the smallest and largest contributors are subjected to some supplementary provisions. Russia's contribution rate has not yet been decided.
As in the case of any new accession, but on a larger scale, the accession of the Russian Federation will lead to the gradual apperance of new needs over a number of years. It will be necessary to increase the ordinary budget, especially as current resources are already extremely stretched. The increase should be at least equal to the amount of the contributions payable by the new members, thus entailing an increase in the Organisation's capacity for action.
d. Questions relating to the Secretariat
As has happened with the other new members, Russia's accession will lead to the emergence over the years of a series of new functional needs whose fulfilment will require the creation of a certain number of posts. Furthermore, the Organisation will have to recruit nationals of the Russian Federation so as gradually to build up the quota assigned to this country in line with the size of its budget contribution and thus reflect the Council's cultural diversity.
This recruitment will take place in accordance with the existing rules:
the competition procedures designed to guarantee the independence of staff vis-à-vis the member states will be followed;
recruitment will be mainly to start-of-career posts, while allowing for some appointments to positions of responsibility.
Staff policy will continue to encourage balanced consideration of the legitimate expectations of the new members and those of older, under-represented members, and the need to offer career prospects to serving staff while at the same time promoting greater sex equality.
e. Use of languages
It is not anticipated that Russia's accession will have an effect on the Organisation's official languages (English and French). In view of the importance of the Russian language both as a mother tongue and as a foreign language studied in several new member states, one might expect an increase in the expenditure of interpretation. The Assembly already has a more flexible system of working languages (French, English, German and Italian). However, this question has not been discussed by the organs concerned. The Secretariat will endeavour to ensure that the Council's main adopted texts and reports are distributed in Russian.