OREANDA-NEWS  The Federation Council at the meeting on Wednesday is going to adopt the statement "On the situation related to the Russian participation in the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe" and to declare the absence of reasons for referral of applications for participation in the work of the Assembly at the next session.

"In this situation, the members of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation see no grounds for sending an appropriate application for confirmation of the powers of the Russian delegation to PACE for the next session of 2019," the draft statement says.

At the same time, the senators confirm their readiness to continue a constructive dialogue with the national parliaments of the PACE, as well as with the bodies and institutions of the Council of Europe, including the Parliamentary Assembly, "in order to return the Council of Europe to the position of an international organization originally established on the principles of full equality of its members and respect for European democratic values."

Russia will remain true to its position and will not pay a contribution to the budget of the Council of Europe in 2019, said Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Peter Tolstoy. "Russia will not buy tickets for the film that it does not watch," the parliamentarian said.

On January 9, Peter Tolstoy said that the State Duma received a letter from PACE Secretary General Wojciech Savitsky with a proposal to send a Russian delegation to the winter session of the Assembly, which opens on January 21 in Strasbourg. As said by the head of Committee of the lower house's international Affairs Leonid Slutsky, in this regard, a decision was made to conduct extended consultations with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, the senators and representatives of all factions to develop the consolidated position concerning the further participation of Russia in PACE.

The Russian delegation to PACE in April 2014 was deprived of the right to vote because of the events in Ukraine and the reunification of Crimea with Russia. In 2015, PACE twice considered the issue of restoring the powers of the Russian delegation, but then the sanctions only tightened. In response, the delegation of the Russian Federation announced its refusal to work on such conditions, and in 2016-2018 did not submit an application for confirmation of its powers. Russia also proposed to make provisions in the PACE regulations that no one has the right to deprive the powers of deputies, except their voters.