On the eve of the first meeting of the Russian platform at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, PACE rapporteur on Russian democratic forces, Estonian politician Eerik-Niiles Kross, explained how the format was created and what is expected from it. He said the approved group includes 15 members: politicians and public figures in exile, as well as representatives of Russia’s small and Indigenous peoples.
Kross acknowledged that the question of Russia’s democratic future remains, to a large extent, a matter of belief. He noted that history has repeatedly shown that change in Russia can come very quickly and that dictatorships sometimes collapse suddenly. For that reason, he said, Russians should be prepared for such a moment.
He described the creation of the platform as difficult. Within PACE there were both principled objections to Russian participation and procedural arguments, since no such mechanism had existed before. At the same time, Kross stressed that a majority in the assembly believes it is necessary to preserve dialogue with Russians who share European values and have faced repression or been forced to leave the country.
He recalled that, unlike the Belarusian democratic forces, the Russian opposition has no recognized political structure of this kind. For that reason, the composition of the platform was decided by then PACE president Theodoros Rousopoulos on the basis of the resolution’s criteria, and the assembly’s bureau approved the choice. Kross said the result was not perfect, but good enough for an initial line-up.
According to him, platform members will be able to attend committee meetings, speak with the chair’s consent, take part in hearings and side events, and propose topics for future reports. They will not be able to vote, since that right belongs only to members of national delegations. He also said the platform could raise problems affecting anti-war Russians in exile, including legal status and bank accounts, although PACE does not make direct decisions on visa policy.
“If in a year the delegation still exists, if we can still remain in the same room, and if a majority of the assembly still believes this work should continue, that will already be a success,” Kross said.