3 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The president of the Duma or Lower House of the Russian Parliament, Viacheslav Volodin, announced this Monday that the country has decided not to pay the annual fee for the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). corresponding to 2023.
“Today the (Duma) Council has discussed the issue of payment of contributions to the budget of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. It has been decided to suspend the payment of contributions for 2023 and to reallocate for this year the contribution that Russia paid in 2022,” Volodin explained in a post on Telegram.
In particular, Volodin has criticized the attempts to obstruct the work of the Russian delegation in the body. “We should not pay for something in which we do not participate. If they do not let us work this year, we will ask for the fee already paid to be returned to us,” he argued.
The chairman of the Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs, Leonid Slutski, has explained to the Russian news agency TASS that a written note will be sent to the international organization asking “to relocate Russian contributions for the year 2022 amounting to 200,000 euros for their use in the year 2023”.
