Macron wants to return Russia to PACE, but on conditions of passivity
France advocates the return of Russia to PACE, but does not want Moscow to “act as an active member.”
French President Emmanuel Macron announced this course of a press conference with Vladimir Zelensky, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
“Regarding Russia’s membership in the Council of Europe, this should not be considered a sanction, because it is not the Russian state that suffers from this sanction, but the Russians. Because belonging to PACE means for Russian citizens belonging to the legal sphere, it makes it possible to file statements against the Russian Federation when it does not fulfill its rights.
That is why Finland and I have started a consultation process in order to bring Russia back in full, so that it can, firstly, pay dues, and at the same time not act as an active member, that is, we are talking about normalization, we want to avoid a complete withdrawal Russia from the Council of Europe, because this will harm the interests of Russian citizens, and we want to ensure their opportunity to defend their rights,” he said.
Let us recall that the Russian Federation was deprived of the right to vote in PACE after the 2014 events in Crimea.
In response, as a sign of protest, since July 2014, the Russian delegation has refused to participate in PACE meetings. Moscow also stopped paying membership fees.
Speaker of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko said that Russia will not recognize the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and the powers of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, since the Russian delegation does not participate in voting for their candidacies.
“Since we did not vote for the judges of the European Court, now we do not have to listen to this European Court. In addition, if our delegates do not vote in June for a new Secretary General of the Council of Europe, then this is also a non-existent institution for us,” Russian political scientist Sergei Markov previously assured.
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