Russia can suspend membership in PACE

Russia can in a preventive manner to suspend membership in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. This was reported by Kommersant with reference to the head of the Russian delegation in PACA, chairman of the Duma Committee on International Affairs of Unicorn Alexei Pushkov. The deputy explained that in this case PACE will lose the right to monitor the situation in Russia, while Moscow continues to fulfill the obligations taken to the Council of Europe, in particular, the moratorium on the death penalty will retain.

The suspension of membership can be announced at the next PACE session, which will be held on April 7-11. At this session, the agenda of which includes the performance of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, it is supposed to discuss draft resolutions regarding the powers of Russia in the Assembly in connection with the situation in Ukraine. Two draft document projects have already been registered for today. Each signed over 50 deputies, which, in accordance with the PACE Rules, allows them to consider them at sessions.

The first document was made by Briton Robert Walter. His project proposes to "unconditionally condemn the violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine" and deprive the Russian delegation of powers.

The second project prepared by Dange Michael Ostruop Jensen provides for the "suspension of the right of vote of the Russian delegation." Such a measure was already applied against Russia in 2000 in connection with the Second Chechen War. Similarly, they offered to punish Russia in 2009, after the war with Georgia, but then this idea was not supported.

In response, the State Duma in 446 votes accepted a statement in which she regarded the idea of ​​depriving the Russian delegation of authority in PACE as a "destructive step".

During the discussion, the communist Tamara Pletnev invited Russia to leave Pase herself. Pushkov actually supported this initiative. “If we ourselves add up to the authority, then our opponents will have nothing to vote for,” the meaning of such a decision explained Unicoros. He added that the delegation will take this step if PACE will be inclined to strict sanctions against Russia. Membership in the Assembly will suspend the country at least until the end of the year, Pushkov said.

The first deputy chairman of the Duma faction of "Fair Russia" Mikhail Emelyanov, for his part, said that Russia was interested in European integration in the 1990s. Now, when "Russia has become an independent center of world development", the need to work in European structures for the country has disappeared.

Meanwhile, the communist Nikolai Kharitonov reproached Pase of that it was under her pressure in Russia that the moratorium on the death penalty was introduced.

The suspension of membership in PACE was not excluded on Tuesday also the speaker of the Sovfa Valentina Matvienko.