Any questions shall be resolved via dialogue
“I would like to express my gratitude to Finland and colleagues from the Finnish parliament for supporting the Russian delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe,” said 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)
and noted that it is important “to discuss any issues in a dialogue mode”.
Matti Vanhanen said that “it was extremely important for Finland that Russia would take part in the work of the Council of Europe.” He believes that this is important for parliamentarians, as well as for citizens of Russia and Finland, to communicate with each other.
Viacheslav Volodin believes that the dialogue between parliamentarians should not be interrupted. “If only this dialogue is interrupted due to someone’s fault, this is a bad signal, and we should conclude that politicians have lost the ability to conduct a dialogue, this already speaks of a lack of qualifications, a lack of purpose, for which a person was elected to parliament,” the Chairman of the State Duma said.
“We proceed from the fact that dialogue should always be, even in the most difficult situations,” he emphasized.
Fill the dialogue with real content
Viacheslav Volodin suggested the Finnish colleague develop inter-parliamentary communications and fill them with real content to make the meetings more effective. In particular, he suggested that the specialized committees of the parliaments of the two countries work together and possibly discuss the creation of a high-level inter-parliamentary commission, which the State Duma already has with the parliaments of many other states. At the same time, he believes, it is extremely important to take into account traditions and culture.
“We need to reload the relations between our parliaments and build them on more meaningful formats,” said the Chairman of the State Duma.
“When, without taking into account the specifics, some suggestions are made or dialogue is built, of course, this leads to tension,” he said and emphasized the multinational and multiconfessional nature of Russia.
Matti Vanhanen agreed that such an approach would find solutions to many issues. In particular, he agreed that specialized committees could discuss environmental issues, the development of the Arctic, and the forest industry.
Viacheslav Volodin also answered questions of his colleague about how the work on amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation is going.
