French President Emmanuel Macron has welcomed the return of Russia to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in a speech to the panel. He fully supported this decision, Macron said to the Members in Strasbourg.
An exclusion of Moscow from the state organization would have been a setback and would have taken the Russian citizens access to the European Court of Human Rights. The Russian people find themselves in European humanism, according to Macron. But Russia must now fulfill its obligations to the Council of Europe, stressed the President.
Russia had recently regained all rights as a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. They had been temporarily withdrawn because of the annexation of the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and the support of pro-Russian separatists in the war zone of eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian MPs did not attend the committee's fall meeting in protest of Russia's return and missed Macron's speech.
Macron meets Senzow
Before his speech in plenary Macron had met according to the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Senzow in Strasbourg. Senzow was recently released in a prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine. Senzow has emphasized to him that the freedom of others must be respected as much as their own, Macron said in his speech as part of the celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the state union.
Frederick Florin / AP
Macron meets the released Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Senzow: respecting the freedom of others
The Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg, was founded in 1949. Its mission is to monitor human rights and the rule of law in its 47 member states - including countries such as Turkey, Russia and Ukraine. States may be held accountable before the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) for violations of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Council of Europe is not an institution of the European Union.
