The leaders of the five political groups had been given the job of preparing a revised proposal on how to tackle the allegations of corruption. The question will be considered once again when the Bureau meets in April.

“This is extremely disappointing and not at all in the interests of PACE. Any suspicion of corruption and dirty tricks undermines both the organization as a whole and the important work it has been tasked with carrying out. Moreover, the fact that the Parliamentary Assembly has shown itself to be incapable of tackling the situation quickly and effectively by adopting specific measures to deal with the accusations is an additional problem for the organization,” Ingjerd Schou, Head of the Norwegian Delegation, said.

The Nordic and Baltic delegations were among those to raise the issue during the previous session in January and to call for an independent and external investigation into the allegations of corruption.

PACE’s Standing Committee also met in Madrid. One of the items discussed was the situation in Ukraine. A group of five Russian parliamentarians took part in this meeting to exchange views on the deadlock between PACE and the Russian Parliament. This was the first time for over two years that Russian parliamentarians had taken part in meetings in PACE.

The Russian Parliament voted not to send a delegation to the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly after PACE had imposed sanctions on the Russian delegation. The sanctions entailed the removal of the Russian delegation’s voting rights in the Parliamentary Assembly as a result of Russia’s role in the conflict in the Eastern part of Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Other matters under discussion at this meeting included the importance of detainees’ access to lawyers, and how to make it easier for people with disabilities to take part in political life.

Read press releases from the meetings.

The Storting’s Delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.