Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-02-01-Speech-3-217-000"
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"en.20120201.15.3-217-000"2
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"Mr President, as the High Representative will know, in English we have the expression ‘the elephant in the room’ to describe something which we know is there but we do not officially recognise. Well, the European Union has a ‘bear on the doorstep’ in the shape of Russia. My first point relates to what we say – I will come on to what we do in a minute.
What we say in our official statements in relation to Russia is very modest. I do not think it really reflects the attitudes of Russians. On my recent visits to Russia I found really very deep discontent with the decline in democracy in that very important country. There is corruption, and there is a clear failure of the democratic process. This so-called ‘managed democracy’ might be acceptable in Egypt, where my friend Ayman Nour has been prevented from standing as a candidate in the presidential elections, but it is wholly ridiculous that Grigory Yavlinsky has been banned from standing as a presidential candidate in Russia.
When it comes to what we do, apart from making clearer statements criticising the failure of democracy in Russia, I would pay tribute to the Commission and the EAS for increasing the budget for the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights by 34% in response to the Arab Spring, and I hope that we can focus quite a lot of that effort on Russia itself."@en1
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