Media: pro-Russian group is formed in PACE
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) intends to create a group which will be joined by MPs who support Russia and Azerbaijan. The notorious Thierry Mariani is supposed to become the group’s secretary.
This was discovered by a correspondent for Evropeyskaya Pravda who possesses copies of the group formation documents.
The political group by the name of Free Democrats was meant to be created in June already, but its creation was blocked due to the organizers’ mistakes: deputies found plagiarism in the constitutional documents, and the members of the new group did not leave their existing political groups in time. The process is expected to be completed at the autumn session.
The group is to be composed of 24 deputies from various factions who have supported Russia’s and Azerbaijan’s position before, and it will be headed by the Italian Adele Gambaro.
If a pro-Russian group is created, it will receive a seat in the presidential committee and in the Bureau of the Assembly, a quota of the committee leaders and speakers who are being commissioned for matters critically important to Baku and Moscow. It may also make a claim to the position of PACE president according to the quota principle.
It is noteworthy that the notorious Thierry Mariani was nominated for the position of general secretary of the group. Mariani is a pro-Russian former deputy from France who lost in the parliamentary elections. He is known as the key lobbyist of Russian interests in PACE. On multiple occasions he has led parliamentary delegations to the Crimea, despite Kyiv’s protests.
Mariani currently maintains the status of PACE member, and thus he also features among the representatives of the group in question. However, even after the replacement of the members of the French delegation, he will probably remain in the assembly. The secretaries of all political groups are paid employees of the PACE secretariat.