PACE Monitoring Committee votes to strip Russian delegation of voting rights - Slutsky
STRASBOURG. Jan 28 (Interfax) - The Monitoring Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) has supported an amendment to the resolution on the powers of the Russian delegation suggesting to strip Russia of the right to vote and participate in the work of the assembly's governing bodies, with a majority of one vote, deputy head of the Russian delegation Leonid Slutsky has said.
"The amendment saying that the Russian delegation is again stripped of the right to vote and also to be represented in the governing bodies of the assembly: the Bureau, the Presidential Committee and Standing Committee was adopted by a majority of one vote - 35 vs. 34," he said to journalists on Wednesday after a session of the Monitoring Committee.
This means the assembly is divided, Slutsky believes, and the Russian delegation will fight for its rights in the course of voting on the issue at the PACE session.
Slutsky noted that in the opinion of Stefan Schennach, the author of the draft resolution that implies only minor restrictions of the powers of the Russian delegation, the amendment adopted at the committee session destroys the architecture of the document. "If PACE is taken away from us, we will use other venues," Slutsky said.
He said that both he and Schennach were surprised that the amendment was adopted because a few days ago the Monitoring Committee discussed the powers of the Russian delegation and at the time the radical amendments were not supported, namely the proposal that Russia's powers should not be ratified at the January session. Slutsky said that then the amendment was turned down with a difference of 11 votes.
He said that currently the situation is very tense.
"We will have a chance to overrun the amendment in the Parliamentary Assembly during plenary sessions because Mr. Schennach will strongly speak against and say that this practically destroys his entire report," the Russian deputy said.
Nevertheless, many support the Russian stance and speak against the most radical amendments, for instance, Tiny Cox, chairman of the Unified European Left group from the Netherlands, and other group leaders, Slutsky said.
"We would not want to lose this important inter-parliamentary floor but in case virtually all rights are again taken away from us like last April, I think the decision previously announced by State Duma speaker Sergei Naryshkin will be made on freezing our membership in the Assembly. The decision will be made collectively. Such a situation cannot suit us, of course," Slutsky said.