The PACE Committee has voted to draft a resolution that would make the imposition of sanctions on national delegations a more complicated process.
Ukrainian representatives did not participate in the meeting, as reported by Deutsche Welle's Ukrainian service.
The resolution aims to change the principle of voting for sanctions against member states of the Council of Europe, namely violators of the constitutional obligations. The decision was made in Berlin on Thursday, November 14.
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Thus, PACE will continue to work on harmonizing the activities of Council of Europe bodies, according to the text of the document. In particular, the resolution will discuss change in the principle of voting to impose sanctions against violator countries.
The relevant resolution will be submitted for consideration by PACE members in January 2020.
As UNIAN reported, the PACE in April 2014 deprived the Russian delegation of the right to vote and excluded its representatives from all of the Assembly's governing bodies over the annexation of Crimea. In this regard, Russia has not paid contributions to the Council of Europe since June 2017. Many PACE members and politicians considered such actions of Russia blackmail.
On June 25, 2019, the PACE adopted a resolution titled: "Strengthening the decision-making process of the Parliamentary Assembly concerning credentials and voting." The document was supported by 118 parliamentarians, 62 voted against with 10 abstentions. In connection with this decision, the mechanism for imposing sanctions, which had been in force at the PACE before, was canceled.
On June 26, 2019, the PACE supported a resolution approving the credentials of the Russian delegation without imposing any sanctions. Some 116 parliamentarians voted for the corresponding resolution, 62 voted against and 15 abstained.
The delegation of Ukraine to the PACE officially refused to participate in the organization's autumn session over the Russian Federation's return.
