MOSCOW, October 11. /TASS/. The Federation Council (upper house of the Russian parliament) has unanimously approved a draft law on Russia’s denunciation of the Council of Europe (CoE) Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.

Russian President Vladimir Putin submitted the document to the chamber on September 29. Russia signed the Convention in Strasbourg on February 28, 1996. According to it, the parties undertake to guarantee equal rights and protections for national minorities under the law.

The parties must also take appropriate measures to promote, in all areas of economic, social, political and cultural life, full and genuine equality between national minorities and the majority.

The State Duma (lower house of parliament) denounced the convention at a plenary session on October 10.

An explanatory note mentions that the September 27, 2022, resolution from the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe significantly limited the powers of Russia’s expert in the Advisory Committee established to monitor how the convention’s member states were fulfilling their obligations to protect national minorities. In addition, Russia was deprived of the opportunity "to participate in making decisions on issues of interest and monitor violations of the rights of national minorities at the international level, primarily those of the Russian-speaking population abroad."

In the current political situation, the denunciation of the convention "fully meets the interests of Russia," it was noted. Besides, the note says that the termination of Russia’s participation in the treaty will allow the country to avoid discriminatory treatment within this monitoring mechanism of the CoE, while preserving respect for the rights of national minorities.

Russia and the Council of Europe

Russia withdrew from the Council of Europe in March 2022. Moscow said in a statement that NATO and EU states were consistently turning the organization into an instrument of their anti-Russian policy, abandoning equal dialogue and all the principles on which the structure was established. The statement came in response to the decision of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers to suspend Russia’s rights in the committee and the Parliamentary Assembly of the CoE due to Moscow’s special military operation in Ukraine.

Russia joined the CoE in February 1996. Upon joining, it assumed certain obligations, particularly entering European conventions, transferring the national penitentiary system to the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice (from that of the Interior Ministry), adopting a law on alternative military service, and recognizing the jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights.