In a telephone conversation on Friday 30 June, Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign affairs minister, has notified the Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CoE), Thorbjørn Jagland, that Russia was suspending the payment of its contribution to the institution's budget until the rights of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) are fully and unconditionally reinstated.
The 18 Duma parliamentarians saw their voting rights suspended in April 2014 following a vote to sanction Moscow after the annexation of the Crimea. They immediately walked out and have not been seen in the hemicycle since.
In a press release following Lavrov's announcement, Russian diplomatic services speak out against the worsening of the situation at the PACE and the frenzied persecution campaign against parliamentarians seeking to normalise relations with Russia. This could be a reference to the impeachment proceedings against the President of the Assembly, Pedro Agramunt, who has always called for dialogue with Moscow and who is, without any official causal link, under fire over his meeting with Bachar al-Assad held under the aegis of Russia (see other article).
One of the largest contributors to the Council of Europe, along with Germany, France, Italy, Turkey and the United Kingdom, Russia provides 7% of the institution's budget, at just under €32 million. By jeopardising this payment, it risks being excluded and would then be cut off from the European diplomatic platform in which it has invested a great deal since it joined in 1996. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)