2.

Calls on the Vice-President of the Commission/High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the Council, the EU Delegations, the Member States and the Commission in preparation of the comprehensive EU strategy towards Russia, and in response to the erosion of the rule of law, fundamental freedoms and human rights in Russia, to focus on: (a) introducing a new conditionality into EU-Russia relations aimed at ending internal repression in Russia against political and civil society activists, human rights defenders and lawyers, opposition politicians, journalists, the independent media, trade unions, and NGOs, and, if this situation is not addressed, introducing new EU sanctions such as cutting off the access of the Russian oligarchs and officials responsible for human rights violations to real-estate purchases, visas, financial products, etc., in the EU; (b) taking action in EU-Russia relations and in any dialogue with Russia to address human rights in order to accurately reflect the gravity of the human rights crackdown in Russia, in particular during the period since January 2021; continuing to show solidarity and unity of action, with a view to coordinating their positions on Russia in order to limit the negative impact of recently adopted restrictive laws in Russia, and considering the idea of sharing the burden of the economic sanctions against the Russian regime among the Member States in a spirit of fairness, halting the continuation of strategic projects such as Nord Stream 2, and to complement the current EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime with a similar regime dealing with corruption; (c) taking coordinated action to push back against and limit the negative impact of recently adopted restrictive laws in Russia and to prioritise strategic engagement with democracy and human rights activists in Russia, in particular by mainstreaming human rights, including gender equality, and civil society consultation across all dialogues and areas of EU-Russia cooperation, including through cooperation on digitalisation and climate change, as well as any educational and cultural cooperation programmes, while regularly undertaking human rights impact assessments to review this cooperation; (d) assessing which institutions, organisations and media outlets with close links to the Russian Government should be monitored in relation to their activities in the EU; (e) increasing support to human rights defenders, independent NGOs and media, civil society and those defending political and civil freedoms in Russia, such as by showing more sustained and high-level engagement on key individual cases of concern, including the poisoning of Vladimir Kara-Murza, by taking full advantage of visits by ambassadors and other officials to the regions to raise human rights concerns and meet with human rights defenders and civil society, and by strategically using social media, op-eds and press interventions to articulate support for human rights defenders, including in Russia and through independent Russian channels, as well as by supporting independent journalists in Russia with diplomatic/consular actions when they are at risk, including a flexible visa policy; while Parliament is emphasising that this cooperation with civil society must be a pillar of the forthcoming new EU strategic approach towards Russia, and is urging the Member States to consider welcoming threatened or banned NGOs from Russia and allowing them to operate from EU territory if needed, and increasing their support for human rights defenders’ work, and, where appropriate, to facilitate the issuance of emergency visas, and provide temporary shelter in EU Member States; (f) the need to continue civil society cooperation with Russia and therefore to address the increasing obstacles that the Russian authorities are putting in the way of people-to-people contacts, civil society cooperation and support to Russian civil society organisations; (g) condemning the new forms of underground repression aimed at sanctioning, in both the capital and elsewhere, the participation of employees, hospital doctors, teachers and social service workers in demonstrations or their support to opponents of the current regime; (h) the need for the EU and its Member States to urgently raise at the Council of Europe the issues of the adoption of recent authoritarian legislative acts by the Russian Federation in the light of fulfilling its international obligations to the Council of Europe; (i) taking coordinated action with like-minded international partners, including G7 countries, urging the Russian authorities to end domestic repression against democracy and civil society activists and human rights defenders, which should also include high-level and public interventions, coordinated initiatives and sustained scrutiny at international and regional human rights forums, such as the Council of Europe, the OSCE and the UN Human Rights Council; (j) undertaking regular human rights impact assessments to ensure that engagement with the Russian authorities does not undermine human rights objectives and does not contribute to human rights violations either directly or indirectly; (k) encouraging EU cities and towns that have active twinning projects with their counterparts in Russia to review and update these agreements to take into account the human rights dimension and to focus cooperation mainly on civil society and people to people contacts; (l) respecting Parliament’s call on the EU Delegation and national diplomatic representations in Russia to closely monitor the situation and trials of individual political prisoners on the ground, and to offer them any support that they may need and to work together to secure their swift release; (m) avoiding lending legitimacy to officials who are responsible for human rights violations and repression, by ensuring, for example, that ambassadors and high-level visitors avoid discretionary meetings with officials involved in repression, for example, with members of the State Duma involved in drafting the ‘foreign agents’ law such as Andrei Klimov; monitoring in this regard bilateral forums such as the Trianon Dialogue and the Sochi Dialogue; assessing their interruption following the example of the Petersburg Dialogue, which decided to stop convening as long as some of its members were discriminated against as ‘undesirable foreign organisations’;