Thorbjorn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe (CoE), stated that if Russia does not resume paying membership dues, the country's participation in the organization’s statutory bodies will be terminated. “Under the statute, if a state does not pay two years, article 9. Two years will be next June. And I think that after this the Committee of Ministers not only can, but should apply the article, ”the European official quotes“ European Truth ”. At the same time, Jagland also allowed the option of the Russian Federation’s withdrawal from the organization, noting that then its budget would have to be changed. “If it becomes clear that Russia is going out, then I will immediately propose to the Committee of Ministers a revised budget of the Council of Europe,” the Secretary General stressed.. On the eve of the autumn session of the PACE, they tried to put forward a resolution that makes it difficult to impose any sanctions on any national delegation.. This document did not contain a word about Russia, but everyone understood what it was about.. But in the end it was decided to return the draft resolution to the relevant commission, including under pressure from representatives of Ukraine. The resolution could determine whether the Russian delegation will return to the assembly. Now everything is postponed to the beginning of 2019. Commenting on what happened on Tuesday in Strasbourg, Chairman of the Federation Council Commission on Information Policy, Alexei Pushkov, warned that Moscow is not afraid of any sanctions.. "In PACE, everyone is coming up with the possibility of some kind of" additional punishments "for Russia, if she decides not to return to PACE in 2019. They can’t understand that they’re no longer capable of punishing Russia - their hands are short.

And the Council of Europe will be punished if it loses its Russian participation ", - he wrote on Twitter.

Back in July, the Russian Foreign Ministry reported that there were no grounds for resuming payments to the Council of Europe.. And this is about 11 million euros per year..

As Deutsche Welle writes today, an extraordinary meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe is scheduled for October 12 in Strasbourg. Its members intend to discuss the actions of member countries in case the Russian Federation does not resume payments..

Probably, eurodeputies already know something, since they so soon called a meeting.

According to the interlocutor of the German edition, Jagland may call on the governments of member countries to increase the amount of their contributions in order to eliminate the financial gap..