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RF delegation to attend PACE session almost full strength

"We’re going to bite the bullet and work even in the most uncomfortable and difficult conditions" PACE vice speaker Leonid Slutsky said
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS
Photo EPA/ITAR-TASS

MOSCOW, September 27 (Itar-Tass) — The Russian delegation will go to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) session practically in full strength, deputy head of the RF delegation director, PACE vice speaker Leonid Slutsky said on Thursday.

“The position of chairman of the State Duma Sergei Naryshkin inspires respect, it’s his decision: the debate will be difficult. But we’re going to bite the bullet and work even in the most uncomfortable and difficult conditions. We will try to make the final resolution on the monitoring report on Russia balanced,” he said.

Slutsky also noted that he is very disappointed over the appearance of recommendations to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe with regard to Russia that “emerged out of nowhere” and were added to the draft resolution approved a month ago by the Monitoring Committee. “Reports on country monitoring in the Assembly history have not been accompanied by such recommendations,” said the deputy head of the RF delegation. In essence, this means the transfer of monitoring to the executive authority sphere, which “is a manifestation of double standards to Russia in the Council of Europe over the past few years.”

Earlier on Thursday, chairman of the State Duma Sergei Naryshkin told reporters he would not go to the PACE session in Strasbourg. “I thought it will be possible for me to speak at the PACE session when the appropriate conditions are created,” the lower house speaker said. “I had once with great pleasure accepted the invitation to speak at a meeting of the PACE session and was preparing to talk about the major problems of parliamentary development in Europe, the formation of a Europe without dividing boundaries,” he said. “But as the session opening time is coming we have felt that it is unlikely that my major policy proposals will be heard by a number of leaders of the Parliamentary Assembly and a number of Russophobic delegations,” he said. “They seem to be interested more in other things,” Naryshkin added.

PACE rapporteurs Andreas Gross (Switzerland) and Senator Gyorgy Frunda (Romania) are expected at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe session in early October to present a progress report on Russia’s fulfilment of its CE membership obligations. According to media reports, in the report’s draft resolution the deputies propose to leave Russia under PACE monitoring because of claims from Europe concerning both foreign policy and human rights.

Some Russian parliamentarians have already described the draft resolution as an “insult” to the Russian Federation.