MOSCOW, June 10. /TASS/. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov insists that Russia’s delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) be reinstated with full rights without any reservations, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday after his telephone conversation with PACE President Liliane Maury Pasquier.

"The sides discussed the situation at PACE ahead of the assembly’s summer session on June 24-28. The minister stressed that the rights of the Russian delegation must be restored fully and without any reservations, which is in the spirit and letter of the Council of Europe’s Charter and the resolutions passed by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe in Helsinki on May 17. Lavrov also hailed the contribution of the Committee’s responsible members to the elaboration and adoption of this resolution," the ministry said.

"The Russian side reiterated commitment to further comprehensive cooperation within the Council of Europe as its legal instruments constitute the basis of Europe’s legal space," the ministry said.

Russia and PACE

The Russian delegation to PACE was stripped off the rights to vote, take part in monitoring missions and be elected to PACE steering bodies in April 2014 following the developments in Ukraine and Crimea’s reunification with Russia.

Secretary General of the Council of Europe Thorbjorn Jagland said in October 2018 that Russia could be expelled from the Council of Europe from June 2019 if the country did not make any monetary contributions.

After a Council of Europe’s ministerial meeting on May 16-17, 2019, the Committee of Ministers issued a statement saying that all the Council of Europe’s member nations should enjoy equal possibilities in terms of participation in its steering bodies. The foreign ministers also said they would want to see all the member states’ delegations at PACE’s June session which was to elect the secretary general and judges of the European Court of Human Rights.