Russia suspends payments to Council Of Europe

Russia announced it is suspending its financial contributions to the Council of Europe over the ispute regarding Russian delegates who were stripped of their authority following the annexation of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula by Russia.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe suspended the voting rights of Russia’s delegation after Moscow’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula in 2014.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov informed Thorbjorn Jagland, general secretary of the European human rights body, about Moscow’s decision to halt payments in a phone conversation.

He said the payments would not resume until the rights of Russia’s delegation were fully restored, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

In April 2014, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) deprived the delegation of voting rights in the wake of Moscow’s illegal annexation of the Ukrainian region.

Russia was reportedly to contribute about 33 million euros for the year to the 47-member body that focuses on democracy and human rights across Europe.

Russian Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin said this month that Moscow still had about 11 million euros to pay.

Moscow has also been angered by a number of rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, the Strasbourg-based court that polices the European Convention on Human Rights.

The court ruled this month that a Russian law banning what it described as the promotion of homosexuality to minors breached European treaty rules. Moscow said it would appeal what it called an unjust decision.

The court said last year that Moscow had violated the European Convention in all but six of its 228 judgments in Russian cases.