Baltics, Poland, Ukraine vow to block Russian delegation's PACE powers

VILNIUS – The Baltic states, together with Ukraine and Poland, are seeking to block the Russian delegation's powers at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), with the final vote on the proposal scheduled for Thursday, representatives of the Office of the Seimas, the Lithuanian parliament, said on Tuesday.

As the PACE winter session usually started with the confirmation of delegations' powers, the initiative was raised by the Ukrainian delegation and was later backed by the Baltic states and Poland.

A report will be prepared at the PACE's Monitoring Committee, with the final vote scheduled for Thursday.

30 votes of lawmakers from five countries are needed to block powers.

Lithuanian MP Emanuelis Zingeris, chairman of Lithuania's PACE delegation, told BNS the inclusion of this issues was already "a major achievement", but he doubts the initiative will garner enough votes.

Zingeris also sought a PACE debate on the detention and incarceration of Alexey Navalny but the initiative failed to get enough votes.

Russia lost its voting rights and the majority of other powers at PACE after it Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in 2014. Moscow responded by boycotting the assembly's sessions.

In June 2019, PACE voted to restore Moscow's voting rights to prevent Russian MPs from leaving the organization altogether.