The task of CSTO parliamentarians is to give our commanders-in-chief legal mechanisms for prompt decision-making on countering challenges and threats

Anatoly Vyborny, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Defenсe and Security of the Collective Security Treaty Organization Parliamentary Assembly and deputy Chairman of the Committee on Security and Corruption Control of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, who chaired an extraordinary session of the CSTO PA standing committees, spoke about the tasks set forth at the anniversary meeting of the CSTO heads of state in Moscow and the tasks set to be fulfilled by the CSTO Member States.
“Today, during the work of the standing commissions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, we were given a new momentum. Yesterday, during the meeting with the heads of the CSTO Member States dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Collective Security Treaty and the 20th anniversary of the Organization, the heads of state made very important, key proposals,” said Anatoly Vyborny.
He reminded that during the anniversary meeting, the leaders assessed the decades of work of the Collective Security Treaty Organization and made proposals for the future work.
“Today everyone in the world knows that the Collective Security Treaty Organization is the only platform in the post-Soviet space which is a guarantor of collective security in its area of responsibility. And this platform unites states based on the principles of reciprocity, utmost respect for each other, fraternal support and taking into account the opinion of each state,” the Russian parliamentarian stressed.
“Today we see that the CSTO Member States can jointly and effectively counteract international terrorism, extremism and other challenges and threats,” Mr Vyborny said.
He reminded that all the proposals, the interaction being built, these principles of work are aimed at the only goal: to preserve the sovereignty of our states and ensure their independence and state integrity.
And today, according to Anatoly Vyborny, parliamentarians play a key role in this, as it is they who create and improve legal frameworks that provide an opportunity to successfully and efficiently solve the statutory objectives of the Collective Security Treaty Organization through model legislation developed and adopted within the framework of the Parliamentary Assembly.
“Legal frameworks of the model legislation, those legal frameworks that we adopt –they are then harmonized within the framework of national legislations – allow us to successfully solve tasks that stand before the CSTO Collective Force, the Rapid Response Force among others,” Anatoly Vyborny said.
“The norms of international law and the sovereignty of states, however small or large, are carefully respected on the platforms of the CSTO and CSTO Parliamentary Assembly. And the relations are established there solely from the viewpoint of international law. This is the first thing. The second thing is that we understand that today, taking into account the existing challenges and threats that our states face, and the threats that we might face in the future, not to mention NATO activity near Russia’s borders, and not only Russia’s, we as parliamentarians need to reformat our work. The wonderful time when we could work on model acts for years, polishing the wording, is gone. We do not have that time now. And we realize that model legislation has to be ahead of events, ahead of time. We must be one step ahead in order to meet the challenges and threats that seemed fantastic only yesterday.
Therefore, our task today is to seize the initiative, to work out mechanisms of interaction within the Organization so that we – as far as legal frameworks are concerned – can be ahead of the possible challenges and threats.
Our commanders-in-chief should have such legal frameworks and resources that would enable them to make decisions on possible counteraction to challenges and threats that we may face if not today, then in the future not even in a matter of days and hours, but literally in a matter of minutes. And today the parliamentarians are actively working on that, and I think that in the nearest future we will present such legal frameworks to our commanders-in-chief and to our supreme body, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.