«Any negotiations should start with discussing the release of people unlawfully detained in Russia». Oleksandra Romantsova at the meeting with Members of the European Parliament
On 8 March, Oleksandra Romantsova, Executive Director of the Center for Civil Liberties, attended a diplomatic breakfast with a group of nine MEPs who came to Kyiv for the 16th meeting of the EU-Ukraine Parliamentary Association Committee. This event was an opportunity to brief the members of the EU mission on all relevant, important and painful issues related to security, human rights, reforms and legislation.
Apart from the Center for Civil Liberties, the EU mission has also invited representatives of other Ukrainian civil society organisations in the fields of human rights, anti-corruption, feminism and those who support the military and monitor elections. They talked about corruption, the possibility of holding elections and the conditions to make them truly democratic, the investigation of war crimes, support of relatives of missing and released prisoners, and about the need to support the military. Changes in the organisational capacity of civil society organisations as the US agencies ceased to support them were a key topic there.
“In my opinion, organisations succeeded in immersing the delegation into the detailed context and explain all the complexities, for instance, about investigating corruption and holding elections in a manner enabling all the society to participate in it, and also about supporting civil society organisations to ensure they work independently.
I spoke more specifically about the People First campaign, the need to talk about the most important things within the framework of every negotiation, including those that will actively involve Europe. Any negotiations should start with discussing the release of people unlawfully detained in Russia, both adults and children. And of course they should start with the status of war prisoners to be released provided there is a ceasefire”, Oleksandra Romantsova said.
