Proposition de résolution - B9-0483/2022Proposition de résolution
B9-0483/2022
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MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION on recognising the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism

16.11.2022 - (2022/2896(RSP))

to wind up the debate on the statement by the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
pursuant to Rule 132(2) of the Rules of Procedure

Andrius Kubilius, Michael Gahler, Rasa Juknevičienė, David McAllister, Peter van Dalen, Isabel Wiseler‑Lima, Siegfried Mureşan, Vangelis Meimarakis, Ewa Kopacz, Jerzy Buzek, Vladimír Bilčík, Gheorghe Falcă, Tomasz Frankowski, Andrzej Halicki, Sandra Kalniete, Andrey Kovatchev, David Lega, Miriam Lexmann, Antonio López‑Istúriz White, Elżbieta Katarzyna Łukacijewska, Aušra Maldeikienė, Lukas Mandl, Liudas Mažylis, Janina Ochojska, Radosław Sikorski, Michaela Šojdrová, Eugen Tomac, Inese Vaidere, Alexander Alexandrov Yordanov, Milan Zver
on behalf of the PPE Group

See also joint motion for a resolution RC-B9-0482/2022

Procédure : 2022/2896(RSP)
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B9‑0483/2022

European Parliament resolution on recognising the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism

(2022/2896(RSP))

The European Parliament,

 having regard to its previous resolutions on Russia,

 having regard to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 9 December 1948 and the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949,

 having regard to the European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism of 27 January 1977, and the international conventions that followed,

 having regard to Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Resolution 2463 of 13 October 2022 on the further escalation of the Russian Federation’s aggression against Ukraine,

 having regard to Directive (EU) 2017/541 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2017 on combating terrorism[1],

 having regard to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,

 having regard to the Joint Statement of 16 October 2022 by the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on the need to ensure accountability for Russia’s crimes in Ukraine,

 having regard to Council Common Position 2001/931/CFSP of 27 December 2001 on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism[2] and 2009/468/CFSP of 15 June 2009 updating Common Position 2001/931/CFSP on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism[3],

 having regard to Rule 132(2) of its Rules of Procedure,

A. whereas ‘state terrorism’ refers to acts of violence which a state systematically directs against a civilian population of another state or against its own citizens[4]; whereas the essence of terrorism can be summarised as premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against non-combatant targets; whereas establishment terrorism, often called state or state-sponsored terrorism, is employed by governments – or more often by factions within governments – against that government’s citizens, against factions within the government, or against foreign governments or groups[5];

B. whereas since 24 of February 2022, when Russia launched the illegal, unprovoked and unjustified war against Ukraine, with the unanimous support of the Russian Parliament, its troops have killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians; whereas Russian troops continue to carry out acts of terror throughout the country targeting various elements of civilian infrastructure such as houses, schools, hospitals, railway stations, theatres and the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia; whereas these brutal and inhumane acts are causing suffering, destruction and displacement; whereas Ukraine has already documented more than 34 000 war crimes committed by Russian and proxy troops; whereas more than 90 % of these crimes have been committed against the civilian population and/or are aimed at destroying civilian facilities;

C. whereas since the beginning of October, Russia has been targeting parts of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure using Iranian kamikaze drones; whereas this is causing immense damage and suffering among the civilian population and is aimed at bringing forth a humanitarian catastrophe and forcing new waves of refugees to flee during the cold months of winter;

D. whereas the Russian Federation has already used more than 4 000 missiles against Ukraine and shelled the country more than 24 000 times from inside Russian territory; whereas as of November 2022, the armed forces of the Russian Federation have damaged or destroyed more than 60 982 elements of civilian infrastructure, including 42 818 residential buildings and houses, 1 960 educational and 396 medical institutions, 392 cultural and 87 religious buildings, and 5 315 structures related to the water and electricity networks; whereas deliberate missile and drone attacks launched by the Russian Federation have destroyed 40 % of critical energy infrastructure across Ukraine; whereas there have been reports that an evacuation of Kyiv might be considered; whereas there is a shortage of glass to repair windows in private homes;

E. whereas the servicemen of the Russian armed forces have committed killings, abductions, sexual violence, torture and other atrocities in the newly and previously occupied territories of the Kyiv (Bucha, Irpin, Borodyanka and Hostomel), Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv regions of Ukraine; whereas after the liberation of Izyum in September 2022, the armed forces of Ukraine found more than 400 unmarked graves of Ukrainian civilians; whereas in June 2022, the Russians fired missiles at a shopping centre in Kremenchuk, killing dozens of people and injuring dozens more;

F. whereas during the siege of Mariupol, the authorities of the Russian Federation created a large-scale humanitarian crisis which lead to the death of more than 22 000 civilians and destroyed 95 % of the city;

G. whereas Ukrainian civilians, including children, are victims of targeted killings and abductions, torture, rape and sexual violence; whereas more than 1.3 million Ukrainian citizens, including over 200 000 children, have been forced to leave their homes or have been deported to remote parts of Russia; whereas the Russian Federation made wide use of mass forced deportations of Ukrainian citizens, including children, to the territory of Russia by passing them through so-called ‘filtration camps’;

H. whereas Russia has for many years been initiating terrorist acts and supporting and financing terrorist regimes, for instance supplying weapons to the Assad regime in Syria and targeting innocent civilians in Syria with deliberate attacks on peaceful cities and civilian infrastructure, in particular markets, medical facilities and schools; whereas these acts also include the poisoning of the Skripal family and the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, in which 298 people lost their lives;

I. whereas the Russian Federation, in a widespread manner, is using terror tactics against the civilian populations in Syria, Sudan, Libya, the Central African Republic and Mali, and for this purpose is utilising the Wagner Group of private mercenaries, which is also committing the similar crimes in Ukraine, including gross and systematic human rights violations such as mass summary executions, arbitrary detentions, sexual violence, enforced disappearances and torture;

J. whereas the Russian Federation continues to commit systemic acts of terrorism deliberately targeting the regime’s political opponents in Russia and abroad by means of politically motivated assassinations or attempted assassinations and poisonings of opponents, journalists, activists and foreign leaders; whereas cases of such actions include those of Viktor Yushchenko, Anna Politkovskaya, Boris Nemtsov, Sergei Protazanov, Vladimir Kara-Murza, Alexei Navalny, Sergei and Yulia Skripal, Natalya Estemirova, Alexander Litvinenko and Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, among others;

K. whereas during the Second Chechen War of 1999-2009 the Government of the Russian Federation organised and implemented a campaign of terror against civilians, including the barbaric destruction of the capital of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, the city of Grozny, which caused the death of thousands of innocent men, women and children;

L. whereas the actions undertaken by Russian and proxy forces fit the definition of terrorism accepted by the EU, the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly, contained in UN Security Council Resolution 1566 of 2004, UN General Assembly Resolution 49/60 of 9 December 1994 and Council Common Positions 2001/931/CFSP and 2009/468/CFSP; whereas these definitions describe terrorism as criminal acts, including against civilians, committed with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury, or the taking of hostages with the purpose of provoking a state of terror in the general public or among a particular group of persons, intimidating a population or compelling a government or international organisation to do or to abstain from doing any act;

M. whereas the criteria that an entity must fulfil to be added to the EU terrorist list, as described in Common Position 2001/931/CFSP, are, inter alia, that they conduct acts which aim to seriously intimidate a population or seriously destabilise or destroy the fundamental political, constitutional, economic or social structures of a country, carry out attacks upon a person’s life which may cause death, or attacks upon the physical integrity of a person, engage in kidnap or hostage taking, or cause extensive destruction to a government or public facility, a transport system, an infrastructure facility, including information systems, a fixed platform located on the continental shelf, a public place or private property, which is likely to endanger human life, result in major economic loss or interfere with or disrupt the supply of water, power or any other fundamental natural resource, the effect of which is to endanger human life;

N. whereas such terrorist methods of waging war, sanctioned by the Russian leadership and army command, are a part of the strategy of intimidation and destruction of Ukraine as a nation;

O. whereas such violent, planned terrorist actions by the Russian armed forces in Ukraine have no military significance and are carried out exclusively with terrorist intent, orchestrated by the Putin regime, using the existing state machine of the Russian Federation and executed by regular and irregular military structures that involve persons with criminal records and foreign mercenaries;

P. whereas the purpose of such terrorist actions by the Putin regime is to suppress the resistance of Ukrainians, to give them no alternative but to accept the occupying power and agree to the illegal attempt to annex the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine;

Q. whereas the criminal actions undertaken by Russia in Ukraine far exceed simply ‘sponsoring terrorism’, since the main perpetrator of these terrorist acts is the Russian armed forces, a core institution of the Russian state, rather than a non-state actor; whereas these crimes being committed by Russia reflect a grotesque indifference to the rules and laws of war that constrain the exercise of military power, as seen for instance in the widespread use of torture against and the summary executions of Ukrainian prisoners of war; whereas these acts are not one-off instances carried out by rogue elements of the Russian armed forces, but are instead designed and conducted with the specific intention of terrorising the Ukrainian population;

R. whereas the EU’s current legal framework does not provide for the designation of a state as a sponsor of terrorism or as a perpetrator of terrorism; whereas additional action is therefore needed from the EU for the adoption of a new legal instrument to impose legal consequences on states that perpetrate acts of state terrorism; whereas introducing changes in the legal framework and recognising the current Russian regime as a terrorist one should have the practical consequence of limiting any kind of cooperation, implementing restrictive measures, freezing financial assets and suspending political dialogues and negotiations; whereas this will provide an opportunity to cease cooperation with Russian-owned entities and state-controlled companies and enforce secondary sanctions on other countries and individuals that continue to cooperate with Russian entities; whereas recognising the current Russian regime as a terrorist one should allow courts to award compensation to victims of terrorism and confiscate the assets of the Russian Federation;

S. whereas recognising Russia as a state committing acts of terrorism would also raise the question of suspending Russia’s membership of international organisations such as the UN and its Security Council, as well as other multilateral forums such as the G20; whereas some of the restrictive measures mentioned above have already been implemented as a result of the several rounds of sanctions introduced against Russia and Belarus as from 24 February 2022;

T. whereas the US does have a legal procedure that allows the country to designate states as sponsors of terrorism under the Export Administration Act, Arms Export Control Act and Foreign Assistance Act; whereas the US currently designates the governments of Syria, Iran, North Korea and Cuba as state sponsors of acts of international terrorism; whereas Canada has a state supporter of terrorism mechanism under the State Immunity Act, with Iran and Syria listed as state supporters of terrorism since 2012;

U. whereas on 14 March 2022, the Chairperson-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Zbigniew Rau stated that actions of the Government of the Russian Federation in Ukraine against innocent civilians and civilian infrastructure amount to ‘state terrorism’;

V. whereas on 13 October 2022, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe declared the current Russian regime as a terrorist one[6]; whereas the Council of Europe noted, in particular, that with its indiscriminate attacks, such as the barbaric set of missile attacks of 10 October, which targeted several Ukrainian cities, hitting public squares, playgrounds and residential buildings, the Russian Federation aimed to advance its terrorist policy of suppressing the will of Ukrainians to resist and defend their country and provoke maximum harm to civilians;

W. whereas the parliaments of several EU Member States, among them Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Czechia, have already declared Russia a state sponsor of terrorism;

X. whereas on 17 March 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for the world to acknowledge the Russian Federation as a terrorist state;

Y. whereas the President of the European Council Charles Michel stated on 23 September 2022, in his speech to the 77th UN General Assembly on the Russian Federation, that ‘when a permanent member of the Security Council starts an unprovoked, unjustified war which has been condemned by the General Assembly, its suspension from the Security Council should be automatic’;

1. Reiterates its unwavering support for the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, within its internationally recognised borders; condemns Russia’s illegal, unprovoked and unjustified war against Ukraine and demands that Russia and its proxy forces cease all military actions in and immediately and unconditionally withdraw from Ukraine’s internationally recognised territory;

2. Expresses its unreserved outrage at the atrocities and coordinated acts of terror, including indiscriminate shelling of cities and towns, forced deportations, the use of banned munitions, attacks against civilians trying to flee conflict areas via pre-agreed humanitarian corridors, executions of civilians, sexual violence, forced displacements and the targeting of residential areas and civilian infrastructure, such as energy facilities, hospitals, schools, shelters and ambulances;

3. Declares the Russian Federation a terrorist regime as a consequence of its deliberate physical destruction of civilian infrastructure and mass murder of Ukrainian civilians with the aim of eliminating the Ukrainian people; calls on the international community of democracies to follow suit;

4. Calls for the EU and its Member States to recognise the current Russian regime as a terrorist one, with all the negative consequences this implies;

5. Calls for the EU institutions to take appropriate action for the adoption of a new EU legal instrument to impose legal consequences on regimes, in this case the current Russian regime, that are guilty of perpetrating acts of state terrorism, including detailing the sanctions to be imposed on the state and the different parts of its government, as well as on its political, legislative, military and executive bodies; asks that practical provisions be included in this legal instrument for making the perpetrator state accountable for its crimes of military aggression;

6. Calls for the EU institutions to include the de facto authorities of the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Luhansk People’s Republic and the armed forces of the Russian Federation, together with its paramilitary units such as the Wagner Group and the 141st Special Motorized Regiment, also known as the Kadyrovites, as well as political groups including the United Russia party and the other political parties represented in the Duma, namely the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, Just Russia – For Truth, and the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, on the EU list of terrorist organisations and states, meaning they can be subjected to broad international sanctions; calls for the appropriate amendments to be made to Council Common Position 2001/931/CFSP on the application of specific measures to combat terrorism and for additional restrictive measures to be considered under the sanctions regime established by Council Regulation (EC) No 2580/2001 on specific restrictive measures directed against certain persons and entities with a view to combating terrorism[7];

7. Calls for the EU institutions to take actions aimed at comprehensively isolating the Russian Federation on the international stage, taking into account the proposal of Council President Charles Michel in relation to its membership in the UN Security Council, and to refrain from holding any events on the territory of the Russian Federation;

8. Calls on the Member States and other countries to take effective measures to comprehensively isolate Russia’s current terrorist regime, including reducing all types of cooperation with the current regime and keeping contacts with its representatives at all levels to the absolute minimum necessary; calls for diplomatic relations with Russia to be reduced further and for the number of diplomats from the EU and its Member States present in Russia to be reduced;

9. Calls on the Member States to close and ban Russian state-affiliated institutions such as the network of the Russian Centres for Science and Culture and Russian diaspora organisations and associations which operate under the auspices and leadership of Russian diplomatic missions and promote Russian propaganda and the neo-imperialistic ideology of Russkiy Mir around the world;

10. Calls on the Council, in addition to demands regarding the new EU legal instrument, to amend Council Common Positions 2001/931/CFSP and 2009/468/CFSP by adding the word ‘state’, to enable the recognition of the current Russian regime as a terrorist one;

11. Calls for the extension of the EU terrorist list to cover individuals and entities listed by various specialised NGOs as sponsors of terrorism;

12. Calls for the accelerated establishment of an ad hoc international tribunal for the crime of aggression committed by the state leadership of Russia against Ukraine, where Vladimir Putin and all Russian civilian and military officials and their proxies responsible for masterminding, launching and conducting the war in Ukraine would be prosecuted;

13. Calls for renewed support for the ongoing independent investigations of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russia, which should ensure that those involved in planning, organising, committing and facilitating these crimes are individually held to account;

14. Emphasises that the assets frozen as a result of the EU sanctions adopted in response to Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine should be confiscated in the same way as are those of terrorist organisations, and used to offer redress for the various consequences of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine; proposes that this redress should include the immediate payment of damages following each missile attack against civilian and energy infrastructure, the reconstruction of Ukraine’s destroyed cities and infrastructure, and compensation for private individuals and destroyed businesses;

15. Invites the Commission and the Member States to establish EU and national legislation to create a legal basis for the use of funds confiscated as a result of EU sanctions to compensate Ukraine and the victims of Russian aggression against Ukraine;

16. Calls on the Commission to work on a legal framework that would allow it to confiscate the assets of Russia’s military and political elite, its war criminals and oligarchs, which have already been seized under the current sanctions regime; stresses that all sanctions should be implemented rigorously and that loopholes should be eliminated;

17. Calls on the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe to continue to evaluate, through the Moscow Mechanism or other appropriate tools, the violations of international humanitarian and human rights law, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine, the human rights situation in Russia and the Russian aggression against Georgia and the Republic of Moldova;

18. Recalls that the crimes of the Soviet Union were not subjected to clear moral or legal evaluation by the international community and stresses that Russia’s current war of aggression against Ukraine and its war crimes against the Ukrainian people demonstrate that a lack of accountability and justice only leads to the repetition of past crimes;

19. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the Vice-President of the Commission / High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, the governments and parliaments of the Member States, the Council of Europe, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Criminal Court, the President, Government and Parliament of Ukraine and the President, Government and Parliament of the Russian Federation.

Dernière mise à jour: 18 novembre 2022
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