MOSCOW, June 4. /TASS/. The decision of the Rules Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to invite the Russian delegation to the summer session facilitates resumption of constructive dialogue and serves as recognition that sanctions against Russia were misguided, Russian State Duma Deputy Speaker Pyotr Tolstoy said on Tuesday.
"We welcome the decision made by the PACE Rules Committee to invite the Russian delegation to the summer session. This represents another step toward resuming constructive dialogue," Tolstoy said. "Now it is up to the Assembly to support the proposed recommendations and overcome the destructive influence of the Russophobic minority," he added.
In fact, the decision to invite the Russian delegation "basically represents recognition that the sanctions policies against Russia in PACE were misguided," he noted. "We are observing chanhing attitudes among Europeans. Many of them have grown tired of hypocrisy and lies and started to understand that our country never was and never will be Europe's enemy. Without Russia's participation, it is impossible to imagine Europe's future," he concluded.
On Monday, PACE's press service said that its Committee on Rules of Procedure proposes to allow all member states, which for various reasons are not represented by a delegation to the Assembly, present their credentials at the June session.
Apart from that, the draft resolution also suggests the Rule of Procedure be supplemented "to clarify that in the context of a challenge to or reconsideration of credentials, members’ rights to vote, to speak and to be represented in the Assembly and its bodies shall not be suspended or withdrawn."
The Russian delegation to PACE was stripped of the rights to vote, take part in monitoring missions and be elected to PACE executive bodies in April 2014 following the developments in Ukraine and Crimea’s reunification with Russia.