Russia drifts away from Europe’s community of values
In less than two months’ time, the inhabitants of the largest country in the world will go to the polls to elect members of their national parliament - the Duma. LYMEC has been concerned with the democratic situation in Russia ever since the current president Vladimir Putin came to power.
LYMEC treasurer, Jeroen Benning, attended on October 14-15 a networking meeting in St Petersburg, a city known as the home of modern Russian democracy. The meeting was attended by several LYMEC member organisations and initiated by the Swedish International Liberal Centre (SILC).
Putin is the strong leader of Russia thanks to his unyielding control of the media. St Petersburg has only one independent newspaper left, Novaya Gazeta. Its chief editor, Valery Beresnev, was clear during the meeting: the government-dependent media is what keeps Putin in the Kremlin and will help him remain in power even after the presidential elections.
With the same speed the economy grew in recent years, the human rights situation deteriorated. Recently, The Economist published an article about the immense and growing power of the FSB, the KGB’s successor. In a democracy, a secret service like the FSB simply cannot exist.
Jeroen Benning commented: ‘Often the EU seems to be too afraid of Russia cutting off energy supplies when it is critical about the obvious state of democracy and freedom in Russia. At the same time they forget that Russia and Putin’s power is as dependent on selling gas to Europe as we are on receiving it. As the largest trading partner of Russia by far, we have a strong tool in our hands to demand a real change in Russia. If we are really the community of values that we should be, let us start applying the same standard to Burma and Russia’.
