Poland in the Council of Europe

This means that the representatives of Russia immediately lost their right to participate in work of the Committee of Ministers, the Parliamentary Assembly, the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities, other bodies and organizational units of the Council of Europe. At the same time, according to the opinion of the Legal Adviser of the CoE, Russia would remain a party to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights would continue to apply in the territory of the Russian Federation.

The majority required to activate art. 8 of the CoE Statute is 2/3 of the CoE member states participating in the vote. On February 25, 42 member states' representations (including Poland) voted to suspend Russia from the Organization.

The suspension of the rights of representation of Russia took place on the basis of article 8 of the London Statute, which states that: "Any member of the Council of Europe which has seriously violated Article 3 may be suspended from its rights of representation and requested by the Committee of Ministers to withdraw under Article 7. If such member does not comply with this request, the Committee may decide that it has ceased to be a member of the Council as from such date  as the Committee may determine.”

The decision of the CoE body was noted by the Alsatian regional daily - Les Dernières Nouvelles d'Alsace: https://www.dna.fr/defense-guerre-conflit/2022/02/25/le-conseil-de-l-europe-suspend-la-russie

On February 26, in response to the military actions carried out by Russia in Ukraine, the PromoUkraina association organized a march for peace in Strasbourg. Approximately 3,700 demonstrators took part in the march (source: Le Monde). The Permanent Representative of the Republic of Poland to the Council of Europe - amb. Jerzy Baurski was present at the event.