Ukraine has made a voluntary contribution to the budget of the Council of Europe in the amount of $400,000 to support the organization in difficult times of financial blackmail on the part of Russia, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has said.
“Today Ukraine has made a voluntary contribution to the budget of the Council of Europe in the amount of $400,000. Russia uses financial blackmail against the Council of Europe. In these difficult times the organization needs support,” Klimkin wrote on Twitter.
“Join us, otherwise the Council of Europe will no longer defend its values and principles,” the Ukrainian foreign minister added.
Later on that day, the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the Council of Europe noted that Ukraine had for the first time made a voluntary contribution to the Council of Europe budget.
“Today the procedure of implementing Ukraine’s voluntary contribution to the budget of the Council of Europe in the amount of $400,000 has been completed in Strasbourg. The financial situation at the Council of Europe deteriorated sharply in 2017, when the Russian Federation used financial blackmail and, in violation of its international legal obligations, refused to pay contributions to the Council of Europe budget until its full-fledged participation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe is restored,” the Ukrainian mission to the Council of Europe wrote on Facebook.
The report notes that such a move by Moscow “put the organization in a particularly difficult situation,” since in the last decade the budget of the Council of Europe had been formed in the face of budget cuts in most member states.
“Under these circumstances, the government of Ukraine decided to support the Council of Europe financially. We made a voluntary contribution in addition to our compulsory payments to the budget. The money will be used in the areas of cooperation that are of priority for both the Council of Europe and in the context of cooperation with our state,” the report said.
