Yesterday's decision by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe election monitoring office not to send a team to Russia's parliamentary elections on December 2nd is a turning point in Russia's relations with the wider Europe of which it is part. All 56 members of the OSCE are obliged to invite it to view their elections.
The last time this happened was when the OSCE refused to cover the 1996 Albanian elections. On this occasion the Russian authorities drastically limited the numbers invited and then delayed the paperwork involved so much that the agency decided it could not carry out its function properly. A ban was imposed on the immediate publication of the OSCE team's findings. Moscow still resents its verdict that the 2003 elections were "free but not fair" because of unequal access to the media. The OSCE role in Ukraine's 2004 Orange revolution, when their team's comments helped give victory to the opposition, also rankles.
Russia's dismissal of the decision yesterday signals that it wants to change the rules of this democratic game. There is a discernibly greater confidence abroad eight years into the Putin era. These elections herald his decision to remain in politics after his two terms as president expire next year; he has yet to announce whether this will be as prime minister at the head of the United Russia party expected to sweep these elections. Opposition figures said yesterday's developments further confirmed their marginalisation in the campaign. They have been blatantly denied media access and must overcome a higher entrance threshold to the Duma which means they are most unlikely to get in.
Official Russia dismisses the OSCE concern with this matter as the vulgar manifestation of interest by major powers opposed to its recovery from the humiliations imposed during the 1990s. Such a Cold War rhetoric is accompanied by resentment of perceived western interference and an affirmation that Russia has no need to follow the same political path. Its own democracy suits its interests better than such condescension, spokesmen insist. They point to divisions within the OSCE, whose parliamentary group may still send observers to accompany those from other countries and international organisations.
This is certainly a regrettable development, as the European Union said yesterday. It confirms a sea change in the EU's relations with Russia, coinciding with the commodity and oil price boom which has fuelled its resurgent power. It now demands political reassessment.