During its plenary session in Strasbourg, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities adopted a declaration on Ukraine following an urgent debate, on the situation in the country, on 25 March. The declaration was presented by Marc Cools (Belgium, ILDG) and received 148 votes in favour, 22 votes against and 8 abstentions.
The Congress states that it “does not accept the validity of the referendum, held on 16 March last, without the minimum democratic guarantees that should be in place for any vote. This pseudo-consultation should on no account pave the way for a change of borders between Russia and Ukraine. The Congress therefore condemns Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Sebastopol in violation of international law.”
Moreover, the Congress declared its readiness to send a delegation to the Ukraine, including to the region of Crimea, to examine the situation. It is also at the disposal of the Ukrainian authorities to take part in a mission to observe the local elections to be held on 25 May 2014.
The day before, the Congress Bureau had reaffirmed its willingness to maintain a dialogue with Russia and considered that in the current situation, only Congress meetings on the political dialogue for resolving the crisis in the Crimea and the restoration of the territorial integrity of Ukraine could be held in Russia. The next meetings of the monitoring and current affairs committees, initially scheduled to take place in Russia - in Ulyanovsk and Kazan respectively - would therefore be held in another member state.
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