MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th February, 2021) Many European members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) are tired of constant attempts by the delegations of Ukraine and Baltic states to push Russia out of the parliamentary forum, Permanent Representative of Russia to the Council of Europe Ivan Soltanovsky said on Friday.
In late January, PACE adopted a resolution ratifying the mandate of the Russian delegation despite amendments by Ukraine and the Baltic states, which opposed the move. Commenting on the decision, Russian Lawmaker Leonid Slutsky said that it indicated the assembly's readiness not to yield to the pressure of "the Russophobic minority."
"There was a predictable attempt on behalf of [the] Ukrainian delegation to contest our authority in the Council of Europe under many false pretexts [during the last PACE session] ... But many reasonable European parliamentarians are tired of this constant frenzy and attempts to push us out of this important parliamentary forum ... This is now the only pan-European parliamentary platform that works," Soltanovsky said at a press conference.
According to the permanent representative, attempts to contest the Russian delegation's authority will, unfortunately, clearly continue, but they should not disorient Moscow.
PACE deprived Russia's delegation of the right to vote and prohibited the country's representatives from assuming senior positions in the assembly after Crimea's reunification with Russia in 2014. The sanctions imposed on the Russian delegation made Moscow suspend its participation in the assembly in 2015, as well as its payments to the organization. Russia resumed the participation of its delegation in the summer of 2019. In January, Slutsky warned PACE that the Russian delegation would leave Strasbourg if the assembly did not ratify its mandate in full.
