Moscow stated that it no longer intends to deal with PACE
Russia will not return to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) due to the postponement of consideration of the resolution on reforming voting rules in the assembly.
Vice Speaker of the State Duma of the Russian Federation Pyotr Tolstoy stated this in a commentary to Izvestia, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
He noted that postponing the consideration of the resolution actually means a refusal to change the illegal and discriminatory position of PACE in relation to national delegations.
"We don't want to work under the conditions created in the Assembly today by Ukrainian and British Russophobes and the victims of rude anti-Russian propaganda who have joined them. It's highly likely that Russia will not participate in this blatant 'rubber glove circus' under such conditions . Why should we do this? Travel, listen to dirty slander about ourselves, and pay for it?" Tolstoy emphasized.
He drew attention to the fact that the governing bodies of the Council of Europe, including the judges of the ECHR, are already being elected without Russia’s participation.
“Accordingly, their decisions will not have legitimacy on the territory of the Russian Federation,” added the vice speaker of the State Duma.
At the same time, the politician added that the resolution did not talk about the return of the Russian delegation to PACE.
“The proposed changes to the regulations could only slightly complicate the procedure for adopting sanctions against national delegations. And we insist on preventing in the future any possibility of discriminatory actions towards any national delegation of any member state of the Council of Europe. Thus, the assembly participants yesterday, by a majority vote, buried the basic democratic principles of the work of this largest international and once respected organization, which, first of all, presuppose equal rights for all participants,” PACE concluded.
As PolitNavigator reported, assessing the scandalous behavior of the Ukrainian delegation to PACE, former head of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's information department, Oleg Voloshin, stated that Ukraine turned Russia's tactical defeat into a victory for Moscow.
Moscow has announced that it no longer intends to deal with PACE.