Russia has blocked a contribution to the PACE of almost €11 million
Financing during the year goes by stages, remaining at the end of the year, the third will not be listed, said the speaker of the state Duma Vyacheslav Volodin.
MOSCOW, June 6. /TASS/. Russia has blocked in the current year, one-third its contribution to the Council of Europe, intended to Finance its parliamentary Assembly (PACE). This amount is about €11 million, has informed on Tuesday to journalists the speaker of the state Duma Vyacheslav Volodin.
“Withheld. And (Chairman of the Federation Council) Valentina Ivanovna (Matvienko) said about it, and (foreign Minister Sergei) Lavrov, and we talked about this — the third blocked”, — he said.
Financing during the year goes in stages, and a third, remaining at the end of the year, not transferred, and everything is almost €11 million Vyacheslav Waltenspiel of the state Duma
Earlier in an interview with TASS Matviyenko reported that the foreign Ministry is working on the relevant legal issues to reduce the contribution of Russia in PACE.
Volodin also commented on the situation with the impeachment of the PACE Bureau, the speaker of the Assembly, Pedro Agramunt, after his visit to Syria, which he made together with Russian parliamentarians. According to Volodina, it did “(Agramunt) opponents who are supporters of undemocratic procedures”.
“This was to be expected: they just found an excuse, they had him (Agramunt) to thank for the fact that he risked his life, flew to Syria, where fighting is going on, and saw with their own eyes what is happening, to hear him, so he told me what was happening,” — said the head of the lower house of Parliament.
Russia and PACE
Russia is one of five main payers of the Council of Europe. Contribution to the CE at the moment is indivisible and represents the total contribution of the Council of Europe, Committee of Ministers, Congress of local and regional authorities and the European court of human rights; the amount is around €40 million of the Russian Federation as a whole has contributed to the Council of Europe for 2017, including the part which is provided for the work in the PACE.
The Russian delegation in PACE in April 2014 was deprived of powers due to the events in Ukraine and the reunification of the Crimea with Russia.
In 2015, the PACE has twice considered the question of the restoration of the Russian delegation of its rights, but the sanctions remained in force: Russia deprived of voting rights and participation in decision-making bodies of the Assembly and its monitoring missions to observe elections in the space of the COE. In response, Russia said it would suspend its involvement in PACE activity until the end of 2015. In January 2016, the Russian delegation refused to apply for credentials for 2016.
At the beginning of this year, the Chairman of the Duma Committee on international Affairs Leonid Slutsky said that Russia will continue cooperation with PACE, but in 2017 to participate in its plenary sessions and Committee work will not.