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PACE approves resolution on restoring full powers of Russian delegation

The Ukrainian delegation has left PACE after the assembly approved the draft resolution confirming full powers of Russia’s delegation

© AP Photo/Christian Lutz

STRASBOURG, June 26. /TASS/. Members of the summer session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) have approved the resolution drafted by a monitoring committee, which confirms the full powers of the Russian delegation within the organization. On the outcomes of the vote, 116 MPs are in favor of the resolution, 62 delegates are against it, while 15 MPs have abstained from voting.

Earlier, Chairman of the Party of the European Left in PACE Tiny Cox said that the resolution’s text does not violate the rights of the Russian delegation in any way.

The Ukrainian delegation has left PACE after the assembly approved the draft resolution confirming full powers of Russia’s delegation. "We are leaving PACE," one of the Ukrainian legislators said after the voting results were announced.

The Russian delegation to PACE was stripped of its rights to vote, to take part in monitoring missions or make up the PACE leadership institutions in April 2014, following the events in Ukraine and Crimea’s reunification with Russia. In 2015, PACE considered the issues of reinstating the rights of the Russian delegation twice, but the sanctions only got tighter then. In response, the Russian delegation announced that it refused to work in such conditions and since 2016 did not submit its application to confirm its rights. In 2017, Russia also froze the payment of its membership fees to the CE budget.

In April 2019, PACE members approved a resolution on the role and mission of the Assembly, which specifically pointed to the need to maintain Russia’s Council of Europe membership and called on Moscow to form a delegation to PACE and pay membership dues. The Council of Europe’s ministerial meeting held in Helsinki on May 16-17 adopted a statement, which said that all member states had to take part in the work of the Committee of Ministers and the Parliamentary Assembly on an equal basis.

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