The Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has approved a preliminary draft decision on confirming the credentials of the Russian delegation without any restrictions. The corresponding document was published on the Assembly's website.
The draft proposes to admit that on a number of issues Russia has deviated from its obligations to the Council of Europe, and has recently further worsened the situation. In particular, the document criticizes the amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, which make it possible not to implement the decisions of the ECHR; providing the Russian parliament with leverage over the Constitutional Court; additional steps aimed at consolidating the illegal annexation of Crimea.
A separate block of accusations is devoted to the unresolved poisoning of Alexei Navalny and the suppression of recent protests.
Despite the harsh criticism, the draft proposes not to impose any sanctions on the Russian Federation in PACE, explaining this by "a desire for dialogue."
On Wednesday, PACE members may submit their comments to this draft. The vote for the document will take place on Thursday morning.
As we reported earlier, Ukraine has challenged the credentials of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
"Yes! A sufficient number of Assembly delegates have supported us! The credentials of the Russian delegation have been officially challenged," Ukrainian MP Oleksiy Honcharenko wrote.
The official added that the Ukrainian delegation had been supported in that matter by 38 delegates out of the required 30.
