On March 15, Vyacheslav Volodin and Valentina Matvienko met with the PACE Chairman to discuss mutually beneficial cooperation.
Back in November 2020, the new president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), Hendrik Dams, had planned his two-day visit to Moscow, but the coronavirus pandemic made its own adjustments. And now, after 5 months, this visit finally took place.
It’s worth remembering, that at the winter session of the PACE, a number of foreign delegations tried to challenge the powers of the Russian delegation. Following the vote, PACE confirmed the credentials of the delegation from Russia and approved the head of the delegation, Pyotr Tolstoy, as the deputy speaker of the assembly.
But the unpleasant residue remained.
Perhaps that’s why, during his short visit, Hendrik Dams planned to meet not only with Sergey Lavrov, Valentina Matvienko and Vyacheslav Volodin, but also with Peter Tolstoy.
During the meeting with Matvienko, we’re discussed many important topics, and one of them is vaccination in Europe.
«When it comes to the health and safety of people, so politicization is unacceptable. We need to pool our resources to defeat the disease…»
Russia is ready to share its vaccine with other countries to counter the COVID-19 pandemic. Matvienko also drew Dams ‘ attention to the fact that it’s unacceptable to rewrite the history of the Second World War.
«To my regret, we still face attempts to use the Council of Europe as an instrument of confrontation against Russia…but we are ready to conduct an honest, open and a mutually respectful dialogue for moving towards the goals, for which the Council of Europe was created,» — Matvienko said.
This year marked the 25th anniversary of Russia’s membership in the Council of Europe. Russia makes a serious contribution to the development of peaceful and constructive relations with European countries. Valentina Matvienko also noted that during this time, Russia has overcame a long and thorny path, but it continues to work and be useful to the Council of Europe.
At the end of the talks, the Senator thanked and expressed hope, that the visit of Hendrik Dams will be another step towards building strong and mutual relations between Russia and the Council of Europe.
