Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs Leonid Slutsky:
“Today, in the format of a business breakfast, a meeting was held with the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Lillian Mori Pasquier. She arrived on the eve of a visit to Moscow, in the framework of which she is scheduled to participate in the international conference “Problems of protecting human rights in the Eurasian space: an exchange of best practices of the Ombudsmen”, as well as a series of negotiations at the parliamentary venue.
We talked about the proposed mechanics of creating the so-called tripartite mechanism for responding to violations by member states of the Council of Europe’s statutory obligations. For our part, we stated the need to adopt more serious conditions for starting the procedure in PACE. Let me remind you that in this draft resolution on the report of Frank Schwabe, in this case, the minimum required number of votes is one third of the list of members of the Assembly (108). The delegation of the Russian Federation insists on a minimum of two-thirds of the votes (216), since it may ultimately involve the exclusion of one of the states from the members of the Council of Europe, and all decisions here must be taken by the vast majority of PACE delegates. We will see how the discussion will be held in Strasbourg, previously the issue is included in the agenda of the meeting on January 28.
A number of other issues were also raised at the meeting, but, first of all, I would like to thank Liliane Mori Pasquier. She made a lot of efforts to constructively resolve the five-year crisis in relations between Russia and PACE and return the Russian delegation to the Strasbourg site. In January, Mrs. Pasquier’s term as President of the Assembly ends. But we will remain in close contact and continue our cooperation. ”
