Poręba, Kamiński and Tannock (ECR) introduced important amendments to the European Parliament's resolution on the upcoming EU-Russia Summit

12th November 2009

During the EP's plenary session in Brussels, a resolution concerning the upcoming EU-Russia summit was adopted. Thanks to the amendments tabled by Tomasz Poręba, Michał Kamiński, and Charles Tannock, a very weak position of the resolution (which was mostly prepared under the Socialists' umbrella) was strengthened by amendments extremely important for the whole EU.

One amendment tabled by Tomasz Poręba and Michał Kamiński introduced a note about media freedom. It also reiterates its [the EP's] call to make sure that the murderers of Natalia Estemirova, Andrei Kulagin, Zarema Sadulayeva, Alik Dzhabrailov, Maksharip Aushev, Stanislav Markelov, Anastasiya Baburova  as well as Anna Politkowskaya are found and brought to justice;.

An additional amendment tabled by Tomasz Poręba introduced the following passage into the resolution:

[The EP] urges Council and Commission to pay utmost attention to the ongoing second trial against former Yukos Oil chief Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which is already replete with severe due process violations; calls on the Russian authorities to combat arbitrariness, to respect the principle of the rule of law and not to use the judiciary as a political tool;.

Another amendment brought forth by Tomasz Poręba and Charles Tannock introduced a new point into the document. The amendment concerns the extremely aggressive defence strategy proposed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev:

[The EP] Is concerned about the offensive nature of Russia's recent "war games" and regrets that the joint military exercises "Zapad 2009" concentrated on repelling a NATO-led attack on Belarus; regrets that Lieutenant-General Sergey Skokov, the Chief of the Main Staff of the Russian Ground Forces, noted that the country faces "potential threats" from the west; is concerned that a "Western threat" scenario is being instrumentally used to implement modernization efforts of the Russian armed forces;.