The summer session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA), held in Luxembourg on July 4-8, adopted several anti-Russian resolutions, including on Crimea, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the INF Treaty and the Nord Stream-2. The Russian delegation did not vote for the adopted final declaration of the OSCE PA.
First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Foreign Affairs Vladimir Dzhabarov explained that this session of the OSCE PA resembled the first sessions that were held after the 2014 events: "I haven't seen such aggression against our country, like this time in Luxembourg, for a long time. The delegations of all the OSCE member states came in full, even the U.S. delegation. From the first days, from the plenary session, we were blasted by representatives of Ukraine, which have started to demonize Russia again, primarily for the annexation of Crimea, saying that the Russian Armed Forces kill Ukrainian civilians in the Donbass. They were echoed, as often happens, by the British and Americans."
Vladimir Dzhabarov expressed the opinion that the U.S. delegation was moderating the vote: "How the voting goes: they raise the lists and count the votes. If there were options for secret voting on this parliamentary platform, the results would be completely different, because on the sidelines we were approached by delegates from different countries which are not our close friends, who said that they support Russia's position. So much pressure was put on us! Russia recently returned to PACE, where Ukrainian, Georgian and other delegations suffered a serious defeat, so they unleashed all their unspent energy against our delegation in the OSCE PA."
Irina Hecht, who was Deputy Chairperson of the Federation Council Committee on Agrifood Policy and Environmental Management during the OSCE PA session, confirmed that the rhetoric of European delegations towards Russia was much softer on the sidelines: "In particular, representatives of the Swiss delegation said that we should support the old Europe and return representatives of these countries to the leading positions. The European countries have started to realize that they are being manipulated. The are tired of those aggressive representatives holding senior positions in the OSCE PA now."
Irina Hecht also spoke about the work of the individual committees of the OSCE PA: "The Nord Stream - 2 project and issues affecting the transition to alternative energy sources were discussed in the Political and Security Committee. Most of the adopted resolutions include quite categorical opinions regarding refusal from traditional fuels and switching to alternative ones. The representatives of the Russian delegation were in favor of developing a balanced approach to solving this problem, but their proposals were strongly rejected."
Hecht called gender equality a key issue for the OSCE PA: "This time Serbia joined the discussion of this topic with a fairly competent resolution that emphasized the importance of women's participation in digitalization processes as a kind of competitive advantage for women. At the same time, a completely incorrect point of view was expressed by some Canadian woman, who said that climate change directly affects women, and something needs to be done about it. With regard to climate change, which is interpreted as the main reason for migration, as the main cause of discrimination against women, we do not share this position."
