A invoice “to put an end to the international treaties between the Council of Europe and the Russian Federation”. This is the content of the latest measure announced and implemented by Wladimir Putin. Earlier, the Russian President appointed the Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko his official representative at the State Duma hearings on the resolution of the international treaties of the Council of Europe against Russia.
What does the new Russian bill say
The document in question, i.e. the invoice, contained in the electronic database of the dumaas stated by the Russian agency RIA Novosti, includes the following chords: Statute of the Council of Europe: the General Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the Council of Europe and its five Protocols; the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and its ten protocols; the European Convention for the Suppression of Terrorism; the European Charter of Local Self-Government; the European Social Charter.
Moscow has also indicated that the date from i international treaties of the Council of Europe is considered to have ended in Russia on March 16, 2022. We remind that on March 15, 2022 the Kremlin officially announced its withdrawal from the Council of Europe and the European Convention on Human Rights, declaring that it will follow the decisions of the ECtHR if they comply with the Russian Constitution.
On the same day, PACE (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe) unanimously adopted a resolution signaling to the Council of Europe’s statutory body, the Committee of Ministers, that Moscow could not be a member of the Council of Europe. The next day, the Committee of Ministers made its decision: Russia is no longer a member of the organization since March 16.
Putin’s actions against “enemy countries”
According to the Meduza website, the decree signed by Putin also states that throughout 2023 the Russian companies they will be able to make decisions without considering the opinion of the co-owner come from “enemy countries“, that is, those countries that imposed sanctions on Russia because of the war in Ukraine.
The decree applies to companies with shares owned by hostile co-owners of no more than 50%, which generated revenues of more than 100 billion rubles last year. According to the Union of Russian Industrialists, the decree will affect about 14 Russian companies with foreign participation.
At the same time, in response to the European Union’s ninth package of sanctions, Moscow has expanded its own blacklist by EU officials who are banned from entering Russia. Russia’s Foreign Ministry said the sanctions target EU law enforcement chiefs involved in training Ukrainian troops as part of the European mission to provide military assistance to Kyiv.
They were also imposed sanctions against European state and business enterprises that manufacture and supply weapons and military equipment to Kyiv, and against EU citizens who indulge in systematic anti-Russian rhetoric in public. Several Members of the European Parliament are blacklisted.