MOSCOW - The Presidential Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) chaired by PACE President Pedro Agramunt will visit Moscow on September 6-7 and meet with State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin and members of the Russian delegation to the Assembly, deputy head of the Russian delegation to PACE and chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots Leonid Slutsky said.
“Naturally, resolution of the crisis in relations between Moscow and Strasbourg will be on the agenda,” Slutsky told reporters on August 31.
Agramunt will be accompanied by leaders of all political groups of the Assembly, he said. “We will receive the PACE Presidential Committee, which is a truly landmark event in today’s scarce cooperation with PACE,” the parliamentarian said.
The stance on resuming cooperation with PACE has not been altered, he said. “The Russian delegation will return to Strasbourg only if the cancellation of discriminative decisions which deprived it of voting rights and major powers in the Assembly is guaranteed,” he said.
PACE “may soon arrive at revision of these sanctions,” Slutsky said.
As to whether the PACE representatives may suggest that Assembly observers monitor the September 18 elections of the State Duma, the parliamentarian said that would hardly be discussed again.
PACE has repeatedly noted the expediency of sending Assembly observers to the State Duma elections but the Russian parliamentary administration said that would be impossible because of the sanctions imposed on the Russian delegation to the Assembly, which limited its principle rights.
“A decision not to invite them [PACE election observers] has already been made,” Slutsky said.
