INTERVIEW: Cristian URSE, Head of the CoE Tbilisi

The Council of Europe (CoE) is an international Strasbourg-based organization that promotes democracy, human rights, and the rule of law in its 47 member states.

CoE has an Office in Tbilisi, where staff members work on a large range of cooperation programs in order to help Georgia act in accordance with the Council of Europe standards in the areas of human rights, rule of law and democracy.

In order to join efforts in Eastern Partnership countries, the European Union (EU) and the Council of Europe have developed a ‘Programmatic Cooperation Framework’ (PCF), which enables cooperation activities with Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus, in order to implement domestic reforms in those countries and bring them closer to European standards.

To find out more about CoE activities, GEORGIA TODAY met with Mr. Cristian URSE, Head of the CoE Office in Georgia.

Georgia joined the CoE in 1999. What do you think was the major step in terms of fulfilling CoE objectives during the 17 years since?

Georgia, as a member of the CoE, has been taking an active part in CoE activities, for example in new standard-setting measures and in new conventions that have been developed and negotiated within the organization- products of interaction and the interests of CoE member states. Georgia is and has been part of that process and I think that is one very important aspect, as Georgia, once committing to human rights and rule of law, has not only taken on the responsibility limited to its domestic territory but has also contributed to the development and upholding of standards in the other member states. In that regard I‘d say Georgia should be proud of the steps it has taken. Georgia’s current path and foreign policy orientation reflect Georgia’s effort to get closer and closer to the EU and this process is very much linked to the conventions and standards that CoE has developed. When you look at the benchmarks established within the EU - Georgia Association Agreement, you see that there are a number of elements related to the judiciary and human rights - all aspects Georgia is committed to implement as a member of CoE.

What are Georgia’s priority areas where domestic reforms are to be carried out within the PCF project?

I would first say that the CoE working instrument with Georgia is a multi-annual Action Plan which was defined between CoE and the Georgian authorities, and which highlights the areas where cooperation is necessary in order to improve the performance of institutions. That action plans follows four main themes: protecting and promoting human rights, strengthening the judiciary, democratic governance (including elections), and combating threats to the rule of law such as corruption or money-laundering. There is also a fifth component which deals with confidence-building and specifically relates to the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

The PCF is an instrument between the EU and CoE enabling us to combine our resources and expertise to deliver the kind of cooperation these countries need. PCF for Georgia comes under the roof of the action plan, so basically PCF is an instrument to promote the activities within the four lines I mentioned above. For example, in PCF we have a project harmonizing national practices of human rights with those of the Court in Strasburg. We are able to interact with and train judges, prosecutors, and lawyers on the Convention of human rights. We provided assistance to the Tbilisi City Court in relation to human rights aspects and s a result the judges were able to be guided by our expert on the main elements related to the convention. And we do see after such assistance more active use of the case law in Strasbourg when it comes to deciding matters for human rights domestically.

Other PCF priority activities relate to administration of elections, the situation of human righst and healthcare in prisons, freedom of media and internet governance, reform of judiciary, as well as national minorities.

How would you generally assess the cooperation of the CoE with the Georgian government? Is it flexible and supportive enough?

We are not only working with governmental institutions. We just rounded-up a project which supports the Georgian Bar Association to better represent their clients on human rights matters.

I should say that the Georgian Government and Georgian authorities in general are very enthusiastic partners when it comes to working together and implementing projects- there is no reluctance to engage and they are open to discuss the shortcomings. In that regard we have had a very positive experience. When defining the lines for our action plan for Georgia, the Georgian government and authorities were very much engaged and very eager to work with the CoE.

Why did you decide to target Eastern Partnership counties with the same program (the PCF) rather than developing country specific programs for each?

It is not necessarily targeting a pool of countries. It is more like providing a handy solution to make resources and expertise of both the EU and CoE available to the authorities in these countries. The EU developed the instrument of Eastern Partnership and from that point of view the EU was willing to extend this kind of cooperation with the Council of Europe to have a Programmatic Cooperation Framework related to those counties. For us, it was a welcome solution to engage more with each of these countries. It is not about treating them all as one, but about having more resources available to go deeper into the detailed needs of each.

For instance, we work with the Ministry of Finance (MoF) on combating money laundering- this is actually a very good example of taking advantage of CoE expertise. The project was designed based on the recommendations for Georgia drafted by the CoE expert committee that deals with money laundering in all member states. For every country they issue a list of recommendations. For the case of Georgia, within the PCF, we were able to translate these recommendations into concrete actions by engaging with the MoF in developing legislation to bolster its capacity to tackle issues related to money laundering.

One of your objectives is to ensure that electoral practice complies with the principles of the CoE. How would you evaluate the 2016 Georgian parliamentary elections?

Speaking of the first round of the 2016 parliamentary elections, monitoring missions say that the overall process was well-administered and well-organized. However, there were a number of irregularities and although they didn’t affect the outcome of elections, this type of information is important to us from a practical point of view, because we know what to target in order to improve in the future the administration of the electoral process.

Natia Liparteliani