Ukrainian delegates' behavior in PACE needs attention of PACE administration - Tolstoy
MOSCOW. Jan 30 (Interfax) - The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) should apply to members of the Ukrainian delegation the regulatory norm on punishment for "harming the reputation and integrity of the assembly," Russian State Duma Deputy Speaker and Vice President of PACE Pyotr Tolstoy said.
"I think the PACE administration should pay attention to the behavior of these 'Europeans', who apparently are still not aware where they are. The assembly regulations include, among other things, a Code of Conduct of members of the Parliamentary Assembly, which envisages punishment for harming the reputation and integrity of the assembly," Tolstoy wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
He said he believes that "such behavior of the Ukrainian delegates inflicts damage on the reputation of the entire organization."
Tolstoy additionally said that, for example, the State Duma has "a commission on ethics, which evaluates debatable statements and offensive behavior of deputies."
"If the PACE charter and regulations still do not envisage punishment for indecent and offensive behavior of members of the assembly, it is probably time to envisage it," he said.
"Ukraine is trying on PACE sites to obstruct the work not only of the Russian delegation, to prevent us from stating our opinion on technicalities," Tolstoy said.
"They are not stopping their impudent attempts to silence all PACE members whose opinion differs from their own. As a result, time is wasted; everyone is distracted from the content of the dialogue. That cannot but outrage the colleagues from other delegations," he said.
"In this session, Rada deputy [Oleksiy] Honcharenko set his security on Russian journalists and boasted about it on social networks," Tolstoy said.
The PACE winter session taking place in Strasbourg on January 27-31.