Estonia mulls Schengen ban on Russian officials

Estonia may unilaterally ban Russian officials deemed guilty of human rights abuses from entering the EU’s Schengen travel zone after a parliament vote.

Seventy two out of 101 MPs on Tuesday (15 March) voted Yes to a statement saying: “The Riigikogu [Estonian parliament] calls for officials of the Russian Federation who are responsible for the capture, detention and illegal trial of Nadiya Savchenko to be banned from entering the European Union.”

Savchenko, a Ukrainian fighter pilot, was abducted by Russia-linked forces inside Ukraine two years ago and taken to Russia, according to the EU.

Russia says she crossed the border into Russia to plot attacks. She was put on trial and faces 25 years in prison if convicted.

The EU, whose diplomats attended her court hearings, has said she was “denied the core right to fair proceedings.”

Her defiant courtroom statements and on-off hunger strikes have made her into a hero in Ukraine.

The Riigikogu motion is not binding on the Estonian government.

Asked by EUobserver on Tuesday how it aims to proceed, an Estonian foreign ministry spokesperson said the motion contains “very substantial proposals on next steps” and “needs to be discussed first.”

But Eerik-Niiles Kross, an MP from Estonia’s ruling Reform Party and the country’s former intelligence chief, told EUobserver on Tuesday that “there’s a good chance” that Estonia will ban the Russian officials by using the Schengen system.

EU-level visa bans are enacted by consensus in the EU Council in Brussels.

But, under Schengen rules, if any Schengen member state red-flags a name in the Schengen Information System (SIS) all the other 21 members are obliged to deny them entry.

The Schengen area covers 22 EU states as well as Liechtenstein, Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.

Political pressure

Kross said the large majority in parliament and the fact the statement was tabled by a senior MP will make it

hard to ignore.

The statement was initiated by Keit Pentus-Rosimannus, the deputy chair of the Reform Party and a former foreign minister.

Kross said: “It gives the government a legal base to put the Russians officials under an entry ban to the EU."

“We from parliament will soon ask the government if they have done so and if needed send them a list [of Russian names]," he added.

"The beauty of this is that once Estonia puts them on a blacklist it's in force through Schengen."

He said Estonia’s list, if enacted, was likely to overlap with an informal European Parliament list recently put together by Lithuanian liberal MEP Petras Austrevicius i.

The Austrevicius list names Russian leader Vladimir Putin i and 28 other people, most of whom are little-known judges and prosecutors. Kross said Estonia is “unlikely” to red-flag Putin.

Swiss precedent

In one precedent, Switzerland in 2010 used the SIS to ban 188 Libyan officials from entering Schengen countries.

It did so amid a dispute with Libya over Hannibal Gaddafi, the son of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, after accusing Hannibal Gaddafi of beating servants in a Swiss hotel.

Libya reacted by banning entry to all citizens of Schengen states. Italy at the time criticised Switzerland for political abuse of Schengen protocols.

The EU external action service declined to comment on the potential diplomatic fall-out if Estonia goes ahead.

Its spokesperson noted that the EU has so far published six statements urging Russia to free Savchenko.

’Humiliation’

The EU has already imposed a visa ban on 146 Russian and Ukrainian individuals for their part in “undermining or threatening of the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine”.

But it has ignored appeals by the EU parliament and by some national parliaments to list Russian officials on grounds of human rights abuses. The previous appeals concerned the case of killed Russian anti-corruption activist Sergei Magnitsky.

Speaking in the Riigikogu ahead of the vote on Tuesday, Kross said Russia’s detention of Savchenko is a violation of the laws of war set out in the Geneva Conventions, to which Russia is a signatory.

“Good and evil exist and in Nadiya Savchenko’s case we have to be against evil,” he said.

“Being silent would mean accepting humiliation by Moscow. The humiliation and degradation not only of Nadiya Savchenko, not only of Ukraine, but of all countries and nations that honour freedom and humanity.”