The State Duma will not send delegation to PACE

The State Duma adopted a statement “On the Situation around Russian Participation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe” at the plenary meeting on Thursday, January 17. It was unanimously supported by all political factions of the State Duma.

“In the current situation, the State Duma sees no reasons for return of the Russian delegation to PACE and the resumption of payment of contributions to the budget of the Council of Europe by the Russian Federation. In this regard, members of the State Duma declare that it is inexpedient to send an application for confirmation of the powers of the members of the Russian delegation to PACE in 2019,” the document says.

According to the Chairman of the State Duma Viacheslav Volodin 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) , these decisions are made only in the interests of the Russian citizens. The Russian delegation has been deprived of the right to vote in PACE for several years.

“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,” Viacheslav Volodin noted.

As the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Petr Tolstoy Tolstoy
Petr Olegovich said, the decision not to send the delegation to PACE had been made after consultations held with colleagues from the Federation Council, as well as after negotiations with the PACE President. PACE in its current form is not able to repeal the discriminatory rules of the Regulations, which allow depriving the Russian delegation of the right to vote, Petr Tolstoy stated.

Factions’ positions

Chairman of the State Duma Committee on International Affairs Leonid Slutskiy Slutsky
Leonid Eduardovich and Chairman of the Committee on Issues of the CIS Affairs and Contacts with Fellow Countryman Leonid Kalashnikov Kalashnikov
Leonid Ivanovich , as well as leaders and representatives of the factions made statements during the discussion of the decision not to send a delegation to PACE.

Thus, Dmitrii Novikov Novikov
Dmitry Georgievich (CPRF faction) recalled that at the initiative of Viacheslav Volodin a representative International Forum “Development of Parliamentarism” was held last summer and it brought together parliamentarians from Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America, which once again had debunked the myth of Russia's isolation. Speaking about the situation with the PACE, the parliamentarian noted that this organization “has become one of the tools of the new episode of the Cold War of the West against Russia.”

The leader of the LDPR faction Vladimir Zhirinovskii Zhirinovsky
Vladimir Volfovich said that his faction fully supported the decision not to send the delegation to the PACE’s session in January. As he said, the Council of Europe “nurtures Russophobic sentiments.”

According to the head of the United Russia faction Sergei Neverov Neverov
Sergey Ivanovich , “Russia in PACE is defending democratic values, the right of Parliaments, regardless of whether the view of this Parliament is acceptable or not, to represent the interests of its country and its citizens.”

“We need to rely on universally accepted values, but it is not good for European structures to try to establish some kind of single pattern for all nations, depriving the rights of those who have a different point of view, depriving them of the right to vote and the right to think differently,” the parliamentarian said and added that the Russian delegation, for its part, had tried to do everything through a dialogue with the parliaments of various European countries to ensure that discriminatory norms were abolished, but had not been heard.

Sergei Neverov also noted the dialogue of the Russian parliamentarians with their constructively-minded colleagues from European and other countries which will be continued.

In his turn, the head of the Just Russia faction Sergei Mironov Mironov
Sergey Mikhailovich stated that “today, the main problem of the PACE, the ECHR, the Council of Europe, in our opinion, is that these organizations have not found their place, their voice in a modern, rapidly changing and dynamic world.” “Today, exactly PACE is the instrument of the so-called collective West in preparing various provocations, sanctions and claims against our country,” the member of the State Duma believes.