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Paying off Russia’s 2017-2018 debt to Council of Europe is questionable, says senior MP

Russia does not owe a debt to PACE for the years it missed in the organization, the parliamentarian thinks

© EPA/RAINER JENSEN

MOSCOW, July 3. /TASS/. Chairman of the Russian State Duma (lower house) Foreign Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky believes that paying back Russia’s debt to the Council of Europe for 2017-2018 remains in question.

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"As far as I understand the mechanism of the Finance Ministry’s actions, we pay for this year, when we returned [to PACE], and do not pay for the years when we were absent from the Council of Europe, which would be quite natural in this case, because what should we pay for? <…> We have a debt for 2017-2018," he told reporters on Wednesday.

"As for this debt, my personal opinion is that its payment is questionable, because at that time our presence in the Council of Europe’s institutions was limited, putting it mildly," Slutsky added.

On Tuesday, Council of Europe Spokesman Daniel Holtgen said that Russia had resumed payments to the Council of Europe by paying its membership contribution for 2019.

In April 2014, Russia’s delegation to PACE was stripped of its fundamental rights, including the right to vote, over the developments in Ukraine and Crimea’s reunification with Russia. In response, Moscow suspended its participation in PACE and payment of its contribution to the Council of Europe.

On June 26, 2019, participants in the PACE session approved a resolution fully ratifying the Russian delegation’s credentials. All proposed sanctions amendments to it were struck down. According to head of the Unified European Left Group at PACE, Tiny Kox of the Netherlands, Russia remains in PACE as a full-fledged member without any restrictions. However, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Georgia and Poland were strongly opposed to Russia’s return to PACE.

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