The resolution was adopted
by the Assembly during its winter session on January 28. As the head of the Russian delegation, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Petr Tolstoy
Petr Olegovich
said, the procedure in response to violations by national delegations of the statutory obligations
was established in accordance with the decisions of the meeting of the Committee
of Ministers, held in Helsinki on May 17, 2019. Their goal was to overcome the systemic crisis in the organization caused by unlawful restrictions of rights of the Russian delegation to PACE.
“Last June, the key rights of national delegations, including the right to vote, were excluded from the list of restriction measures, and as a result of that the credentials of our delegation were ratified in full, and we were able to return to our activities there,” said Petr Tolstoy.
However, the most important decisions made in May in Helsinki were not taken into account, when a complementary joint procedure (the so-called “tripartite mechanism”) regulating the procedure for suspending the representation of member states of the Council of Europe had been developing. As Petr Tolstoy explained, as a result the amendments of the Russian delegation to bring the resolution into strict compliance with those decisions were rejected.
In this regard, the Russian delegation states that work on the mechanism should be continued, and “self-bestowed powers to restrict the rights of national delegations on political grounds” should be excluded from the Assembly Rules. In addition, the Russian delegation insists that “the joint procedure should not have retroactive effect and should only be applied to new and most serious violations of Article 3 of the Statute of the Council of Europe”.
“We hope that the work on the draft procedure on the site of the Committee of Ministers will be continued in a constructive manner and will allow us to reach such decisions that would only strengthen the Council of Europe rather than draw new dividing lines,” the statement said.
