"Second, to review the monitoring procedure. We have been discussing this issue for two or three years…We are in favor of a thematic or situational monitoring, but in any case, there should be a cross-cutting monitoring," Pushkov told journalists.
The Russian side also proposed to improve voting procedures to ensure that important PACE decisions were not accepted by minority vote.
"I must say that there was an absolute agreement with some of these proposals, in particular with the fact that all states should be subject to the monitoring procedure, and that there should not be a group of constantly monitored states, and another group of states that have not been monitored at all. I think that no one in the PACE will defend earlier position. It is outdated, it is anti-democratic, it is anti-discriminatory," the Foreign Affairs Committee chairman added.
In April 2014, PACE adopted a resolution which barred Russian lawmakers from participating in PACE's three key bodies — its Bureau, Presidential Committee and Standing Committee.
Russia did not renew its credentials ahead of the Parliamentary Assembly’s 2016 winter session and made its return conditional to the restoration of its delegates' rights to vote and participate in PACE institutions.
