VP/HR — Leaked conversation between Catherine Ashton and Urmas Paet, Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs
19.3.2014
Question for written answer E-003239-14
to the Commission (Vice-President/High Representative)
Rule 117
Willy Meyer (GUE/NGL)
On 5 March last, the press reported a leaked telephone conversation between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Estonia, Urmas Paet, and the Vice-President/High Representative of the European Union, Catherine Ashton, in which the minister stated his conviction that the deaths in Independence Square in Kiev had been caused by opposition snipers, not the Ukrainian police.
There were no political motives to justify the Yanukovich government opening fire indiscriminately on the opposition to legitimise its demands and to lose what little international support it might still have had. However, there were such motives for the fascist opposition, which did not hesitate to fire on and wound its own supporters in order to provoke the coup d’état which did eventually take place with the international support of the United States and the European Union.
Mr Paet has confirmed the accuracy of the leak, in which he referred to information in his possession following a visit to Kiev on 25 February last, just after these events occurred. This confirmation puts the spotlight on the interventions made in the name of the Vice-President/ High Representative, who had information in her possession which was not provided two days later to the plenary session of the European Parliament, when a resolution was debated on the situation in Ukraine, which included an intervention made in her name in support of the coup d’état.
Does the Vice-President/High Representative acknowledge having this telephone conversation with Mr Urmas Paet? Does she have in her possession more information on Ukraine which she decided unilaterally not to disclose to the other European institutions?
What were her motives in not making available to the European Parliament the information offered by Mr Paet?
Does the Vice-President/High Representative consider that the selective information which she offered to the European Parliament distorted and manipulated the final outcome of the approved resolution?
OJ C 335, 25/09/2014