The Russian leadership is unlikely to review its position on payments to the Council of Europe (CoE) budget, Leonid Slutsky, the head of the Russian parliament's upper house's Foreign Affairs Committee, said Thursday.
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 11th October, 2018) The Russian leadership is unlikely to review its position on payments to the Council of Europe (CoE) budget, Leonid Slutsky, the head of the Russian parliament's upper house's Foreign Affairs Committee, said Thursday.
On Wednesday, CoE Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland said that the organization might expel Russia if Moscow would not resume payments to its budget. On Thursday, he told the CoE Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) that, as far as he knew, Russia might not participate in the January 2019 CoE meeting and might not resume payments.
"We continue sticking to our position. Considering what is happening at PACE, considering Jagland's latest statement, I consider the the possibility that the country's [Russian] leadership will review its position on payments to the CoE as negligibly small. And I believe that the decision not to make payments is absolutely reasonable, considering Strasbourg's attitude to the Russian Federation," Slutsky told reporters.
Russian upper house speaker Valentina Matviyenko said on Thursday that Russia would make its final decision on CoE participation by January.
The relations between PACE and the Russian lawmakers have been tense since 2014, when Russia was deprived of its voting rights in PACE governing bodies over the different stances on the Ukrainian conflict.
Since 2016, the Russian delegation at PACE has not been renewing its credentials ahead of the assembly's sessions in protest of the discrimination within the organization.
In June 2017, Moscow froze part of its CoE contribution meant for Russia's PACE membership for 2018, until the Russian delegation's rights in the organization are completely restored.
