Today, the chairman of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee, the senator of the Chuvash Republic, Konstantin Kosachev, visited the studio of Vestnik Kavkaza. During the program Tribune he spoke about key issues of the international agenda of Russian foreign policy and the Committee's work related to it.
Kosachev stressed that this work includes promoting integration processes with the participation of Russia and the nearest environment. "This is a well-known project of the CIS, which today raises many questions, but I definitely do not think that it has exhausted itself. The CIS will exist for as long as it is necessary for the member-states. Of course, life goes on, some new formats were created, the most notable of them is the Eurasian Economic Union. The one of the last decisions of our Committee and the plenary session of the Federation Council was the ratification of a package of agreements on the accession of Kyrgyzstan to the Union," he said.
"In my opinion, multi-variance is good, not bad news. I am sure that we should have more such formats, they do not have to compete with each other, because each of them is self-sufficient, each has a right to exist," Konstantin Kosachev noted.
According to him, other integration formats with non-CIS countries are also important. "I mean the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and, of course, the BRICS. I am pleased to announce that we have created two separate subcommittees within our Committee – for Eurasian economic cooperation and for interaction with the BRICS countries. We have also decided to create a third Committee on cooperation in the SCO framework," the chairman of the Federation Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee said.
Konstantin Kosachev drew attention to the difficulties experienced by the Russian parliament on work with international markets. "Parliamentary diplomacy, unfortunately, is limited by objective, external circumstances now. We know that Russia doesn't work in the format of the Russia-EU Parliamentary Cooperation Committee. There is no active work at the site of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and activities at the site of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly have also been closed," he reminded.
"It seemed like the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly could be a promising and popular playground, we were preparing for the Helsinki session in early July very seriously, but everyone knows about the events that occurred when Finland faltered and gave way to pressure from the European Union. But that session was devoted to the 40th anniversary of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe to discuss prospects for the development of pan-European security and economic cooperation, and humanitarian projects in the coming years and decades," Konstantin Kosachev said.
The senator said that on the eve of the Helsinki session, the Committee of the Federation Council on International Affairs held special hearings on issues of European cooperation. "We have developed a lot of interesting ideas and proposals, which we planned to voice in Helsinki, but we were not allowed to do so. All of these sanctions, in my opinion, are not logical and reasonable, but the parliamentary component makes sense, because it is a punishment for the parliamentarians because they express the will of their people," he pointed out.
"There is no doubt that the decisions taken by the State Duma and the Federation Council in the context of the Crimean situation conform to the will of the voters. If Sergei Naryshkin and other colleagues voted otherwise, they would directly violate the mandate they received from the voters," Konstantin Kosachev stressed.
The senator left a note in the guestbook of Vestnik Kavkaza. "Dear Colleagues and friends, I am calling you so because we do one thing – we serve our country, serve Russia. I follow your work with pleasure and enjoy your successes. And you have a lot of successes! Steady as you go."
