Deputy Chairman
of the State Duma Petr Tolstoy
Tolstoy
Petr Olegovich
and Chairman of the Committee on International
Affairs Leonid Slutskiy
Slutsky
Leonid Eduardovich
told parliamentary journalists about this after the meeting of the Council of the State Duma.
“The regular session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe starts on January 21, the State Duma received a letter from the PACE Secretary with a proposal to form a delegation. This issue was discussed in detail at the meeting of the Council of the State Duma, all members of the Council, representatives of all factions agreed that it is necessary to hold consultations again and state the parliament’s position on our future participation in the work of this organization within a week,” Petr Tolstoy said.
He reminded that according to the Charter of the Council of Europe, “equality of rights of all members of the Council of Europe is declared, our position is based on this equality”.
Petr Tolstoy stressed that the position of Russian parliamentarians has been unchanged for several years — the situation when the national delegation of the Russian Federation is deprived of the right to vote in PACE is “unacceptable and inadmissible”.
Leonid Slutskiy noted that members of the State Duma are going to hold consultations with members of the Federation Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on this issue during the week.
“We will hold consultations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with our colleagues from the Federation Council. And highly likely, we will consider this situation at a special meeting of the Committee on International Affairs at the beginning of the next week. It may be held on January16 and then the decision will be comsidered on January 17 by the Council of the State Duma. Thus, until January 21, when the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe holds its first meeting,” the parliamentarian said.
“The fact that we support this position, do not change it, is aimed not only for ourselves, this is not for Russia, it should ensure that there are no artificial dividing lines in the Council of Europe,” Leonid Slutskiy added.