“Today at the Council of the State Duma we discussed the issue of the participation of the Russian delegation in PACE.
It was decided to consider this issue tomorrow at a plenary meeting of the State Duma,” Chairman of the State Duma Viacheslav Volodin
Vyacheslav Victorovich
The Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation of the eighth convocation. Elected in single mandate constituency № 163 (Saratov constituency - Saratov Oblast)
told parliamentary journalists after the meeting of the Council.
He stressed that “we have no reason to send our delegation to PACE, there is no reason to return, and we need to make this decision. We will offer it tomorrow for a discussion of the members of the State Duma. We also consider that it is right not to pay a contribution to the Council of Europe this year because our delegation is not able to be fully represented and represent the interests of our citizens.”
“Previous year and even earlier we worked with all national delegations of countries participating in PACE, we had dialogue and it ended just this week, on Monday, with the leadership of the Assembly,” said Viacheslav Volodin. “We did our best to convince our colleagues that PACE is, first of all, an opportunity to express a point of view, protect it, participate in decision making based on the choice of a country, its people, and protect the interests of a country.”
He reminded that all this is reflected in the Statute of the Council of Europe, but the Russian delegation remains deprived of the right to vote in PACE.
“PACE has departed from the principles of democracy, it completely ignores the principles of the work of parliamentary structures, based precisely on the ability to speak, voice and defend a position,” said Viacheslav Volodin.
“The decision that we will consider tomorrow […] is made solely in the interests of the citizens of our country,” said the Chairman of the State Duma.
The session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is set to begin on January 21. Following the results of the Council of the State Duma, Leonid Slutskiy
Leonid Eduardovich
, Chairman of the Committee on International Affairs, told reporters that the decision to consider the application for non-participation of the Russian delegation at the PACE session was taken unanimously by Council members.
Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Petr Tolstoy
Petr Olegovich
clarified that during consideration of the application, speeches of the heads of specified committees and representatives of all factions of the State Duma are planned.
”Russia is a great country. We are proud of our country, our history, and our people and we will not give anyone the right to teach Russia any lessons. This will not be the case with the PACE. The order, according to which the Russophobic minority actually dictates the PACE agenda, leads to a crisis of not only PACE but of the entire Council of Europe in general,” concluded Petr Tolstoy.
