The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe decided not to restore the Russian delegation’s voting rights and its right to sit on the governing bodies. It suspended Russia's voting rights in April 2014 after Crimea joined Russia. In response, the delegation boycotted the summer and autumn sessions and then left Strasbourg.
However, PACE insisted on extension of sanctions against the Russian delegation until April 2015. The amendment to the resolution on Russia’s powers at the organization was approved by 148 voters, while 64 were against.
"The Assembly has decided to suspend [the Russian delegation's] voting rights and its right to be represented in the Assembly's leading bodies”, the resolution reads.
In turn, Aleksey Pushkov, the head of Russia’s PACE delegation, said: “As PACE stripped Russia of the right to vote in its governing bodies, we can no longer speak of any contacts with the organization. We are exiting PACE until the end of the year.”
He also mentioned Russia could quit PACE and would rather concentrate on its activities in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) instead.
