Ukrainian community in Spain reinforces serious concern of UWC over intent to re-engage Russian Federation in PACE

On 9-10 March 2017 members of the Ukrainian community in Madrid, Spain, held a peaceful protest to reinforce the serious concern of the Ukrainian World Congress (UWC) about the repeatedly declared intent of the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Pedro Agramunt to re-engage the Russian Federation in PACE.

The peaceful protest took place during a meeting of the PACE Standing Committee which, on the invitation of the PACE President, was attended by a delegation of the Russian Federation.

In April 2014, with a strong condemnation of the violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, PACE suspended the voting rights of the delegation of the Russian Federation, its right to be represented in the Bureau of the Assembly, the Presidential Committee and the Standing Committee, and its right to participate in election observation missions through the end of the 2014 session. In response, the Russian Federation withdrew its further participation in PACE.

“The Ukrainian World Congress reminds all PACE member states that the Russian Federation has not only defiantly ignored the concerns raised by PACE, but has increased its blatant violations of the Minsk Agreements,” stated UWC President Eugene Czolij. “We continue to urge insistence on full compliance with the mission of PACE and its resolutions 1990 (2014), 2034 (2015) and 2063 (2015) .”