“The decision adopted by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe is a right one, it is based on the Statute of the Council of Europe, where the principle of equality of 47 Council of Europe member states is enshrined. PACE violated this norm, as a result of that the delegation of the Russian Federation was deprived of the right to vote in direct violation of the CE Statute. Now it is necessary to wait for the PACE’s reaction to the decision of the CE Committee of Ministers;
in any case, the Parliamentary Assembly should amend its regulations,
enshrining the rule on equality of all national delegations, or delegate it to the Committee of Ministers. This follows from the decision taken in Helsinki,”
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 reporters.
The Chairman of the State Duma noted that the State Duma will review the decision of the Committee of Ministers, and the PACE reaction to it.
“The national delegation of the Russian Federation to PACE is formed taking into
account the opinions of all factions of the State Duma, and we will discuss
further actions with them, examine all the risks so that the situation that
occurred earlier in PACE does not arise again. And only after that, we will
send an application for participation. We have time. We consider that this
decision is very important, and we have always stressed the importance of Russia's participation in this institution of the Council of Europe, the use of its capabilities but what happened in PACE lately cannot but worry us.
Deprivation of a national delegation of the right to vote, the discriminatory
principle on which work is based in PACE cannot leave us unfazed. And we will
make the decision based on the interests of our citizens and our country,” said
Viacheslav Volodin.
