Council of Europe: allowing the Russians back in

The Council of Europe debated a report called "Strengthening the decision-making process of the Parliamentary Assembly concerning credentials and voting".  Essentially this was about allowing the Russians back in with no cionditions on their membership.  It was the Russians who had chosen to exclude themselves from the Council rather than being thrown out.  In my speech I said it was not right to have such an unconditional welcome to the Russians given that they had deprived the Council of money, invaded Ukraine and Georgia, were imprisoning 20 Ukrainian sailors, had tried to kill on the streets of Salisbury, and were not co-operating over the downing of MH17 with the loss of almost 300 lives.  I argued that the Council should not weaken our ability to take sanctions against them.

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