PARIS, February 2. /TASS/. The Council of Europe does not comment on a proposal to give Russia back the membership fees Moscow paid for years when its delegation did not attend sessions of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Daniel Holtgen, Director of Communications and Spokesperson for the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, said on Saturday.
"No comment," Holtgen said in response to a TASS request to comment on Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin’s idea that the Council of Europe should give Russia back the payments for the years when its delegation did not work at PACE.
On Friday, the speaker of the lower house of Russia’s parliament said in an interview with the Rossiya’24 television channel that proceeding from the fact that Russia had been denied a chance to work at PACE, "we would like the Parliamentary Assembly [of the Council of Europe] to repay Russia’s money. And this is a big sum," adding that the sum in question was ten billion rubles (152.72 million US dollars).
According to Volodin, Russia was one of the organization’s contributors, with an annual contribution of 32.5 million euro. In his words, the issue of repayment of Russia’s contribution would be raised at the Council of Europe in the near future.
Russia and PACE
In April 2014, the Russian delegation to PACE was stripped of its key rights, including the right to vote and take part in the assembly’s governing bodies, following the developments in Ukraine and Crimea. The issue of restoring the Russian delegation’s rights was raised at PACE twice in 2015, but instead the sanctions were only tightened.
In response, Russia suspended its participation in PACE’s activities until the end of 2015. In 2016-2018, Russia skipped the parliamentary assembly’s meetings due to the ongoing sanctions and did not renew its credentials in the wake of anti-Russian sentiment in Strasbourg.
On 10 October 2018, Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn Jagland told the PACE autumn session that the organization's Committee of Ministers will have to expel Russia from the Council’s decision-making bodies - the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly - if the country does not make any monetary contributions. In response, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov pointed out that Russia would quit the Council of Europe on its own volition in case opponents at the council insist on its expulsion.
In January, both houses of Russia’s parliament - the State Duma and Federation Council - unanimously passed statements, which suggested not sending the Russian delegation to the PACE session in 2019. Besides, the State Duma promised that the decision to freeze Russia’s monetary contributions to the Council of Europe would remain in effect. In the wake of the Russia-PACE crisis, an issue of Russia’s further membership in the Council of Europe have been raised more than once.