MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Russia has suspended one-third of its remaining contribution to the Council of Europe's (CoE) budget, leaving the international rights group 11 million euros ($12.39 million) short this year, speaker of the lower chamber of parliament Vyacheslav Volodin said Tuesday.
"The transfer is blocked. There is financing in stages, and so the one-third left for the end of the year is not transferred at all," Volodin told reporters.
Russia is one of the main contributors to the CoE budget along with France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and more recently, Turkey. Its total contribution for the adjusted 2017 CoE budget totals 33 million euros, according to the organization's website.
Russia left PACE in late 2015 following the assembly's resolutions in 2014 and 2015 depriving the Russian delegation of the right to vote at the assembly’s sessions, as well as of the right to participate in the work of its three key bodies: the Bureau, the Presidential Committee and the Standing Committee over Crimea's secession to Russia.
Russia did not renew its credentials ahead of the Assembly’s 2016 and 2017 winter sessions and made its return conditional on the full restoration of its delegates' voting rights.
