At an extraordinary session dedicated to the events in Ukraine, the majority of PACE members supported the proposal to exclude Russia from the Council of Europe. However, Russia had previously notified the organization of its intention to withdraw
Photo: Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) voted in favor of a proposal to exclude Russia from the oldest European human rights organization. 216 members voted in favor, with three abstaining.
“The Russian Federation has committed gross violations of the Charter of the Council of Europe that are incompatible with the status of a member state” and “does not fulfill its obligations to the Council of Europe,” the explanation on the organization’s website says.
However, even before the vote, Russia itself decided to withdraw from the Council of Europe. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov notified the Secretary General of the Council of Europe of this on 15 March. As Pyotr Tolstoy, head of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), pointed out, “the entire responsibility for breaking off dialogue with the Council of Europe lies with the NATO countries, which have been using the topic of human rights all this time to pursue their own geopolitical interests.”
According to the procedure, the PACE parliamentarians voted for the adoption of the report, which called for the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe (in it are included foreign ministers of all 47 member countries) to demand that Russia withdraw from the Council of Europe (CE). “If the Russian Federation does not comply with the request, the Committee of Ministers should provide for the earliest possible date from which the Russian Federation will cease to be a member of the Council of Europe,” the text of the report states.