Photo credit: Vitold Muratov / ru.wikipedia.org (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Russia has launched the procedure for withdrawing from the Council of Europe (CE), the corresponding notification was handed on March 15 to the Secretary General of CE Maria Pejcinovic-Buric. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the reason was the fact that the EU and NATO had systematically misused their majority in CE.
The MFA believes that these actions have made CE, the goal of which is to maintain an equal dialogue and strengthen the unity of the European peoples, an "instrument of anti-Russian policy" used to put pressure on Moscow and interfere in its internal affairs.
On February 25, the countries of the European Union and NATO took another discriminatory step against Russia by suspending Moscow's representation in the statutory bodies of CE.
Russia is leaving CE without regret, and this fact will not have any impact on the rights and freedoms of Russian citizens, the Ministry emphasized. At the same time, Moscow, as before, is open to "pragmatic and equal cooperation" with other countries on the basis of mutual interests.
Russkiy Mir
