Konstantin Tolkachev commented on Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of European Council work

UFA, 3 April 2018. /Bashinform News Agency, Galiya Nabieva/. The Chairman of the State Assembly of Bashkortostan Konstantin Tolkachev shared his impressions of participation in a plenary session of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, which was held in Strasbourg in the Palais de l'Europe.

"Everybody was touched deeply by a tragedy in Kemerovo. On the initiative of the Chairman of the Congress, Gudrun Mosler-Ternström a moment of silence was declared, it was noted that all Europe mourned together with Russia and the families of the dead".

Konstantin Tolkachev marked that one of the key issues of the session was related to national identification.

"This topic is today one of the most urgent for Europe experiencing a migration crisis. There were a lot of reports on it. I have also managed to share with the experience gained in Russia and our republic, concerning national identification and mechanisms for realizing the rights of nationalities. My speech captured the interest of both my colleagues from other countries, as well as the media accredited to the Congress".

According to Konstantin Tolkachev, at one of the previous sessions of the Congress on the initiative of Russia, much attention was paid to the discussion of the Ukrainian law on education, which from this year was supposed to transfer the entire educational process into the Ukrainian language.

"Our criticism was taken into consideration, and at the suggestion of the Congress, the main provisions of the law were also the subject of discussion at the Venice Commission, which confirmed the inconsistency of the law with European standards and the requirements of humanitarian law. The Ukrainian authorities, in turn, said that they would take into account the opinion of the participants of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities in the finalization of this law," said the Chairman of the State Assembly. "At the last session, a similar law on education in Latvia was subjected to serious criticism from our side, as a result of which the representative of Denmark, Simon Emil Ammitzbell, who presided over the Committee of Ministers, stated that everything necessary would be done so that that law also took into account the rights of national minorities to receive education in a native language".

One of the topics actively discussed by European parliamentarians during the plenary session was repayment of Russia's arrears in contributions to the budget of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. In 2014 - 2015, the powers of the Russian parliamentary delegation were so limited that they made it impossible for it to participate in the work of the Assembly.

"Currently, according to the Chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Michele Nicoletti, intensive negotiations of the leadership of the Council of Europe are conducted with our side, there are expectations that the conflict will be resolved by the end of the year and the Russian delegation will again take part in the PACE".