The Congress of Deputies has agreed this Tuesday that Vladimir Putin be declared persona non grata, for which he urges the Government to initiate the appropriate procedure. The initiative has been voted on in the Foreign Affairs Committee, where Vox has presented a PNL with the same purpose and which has been rejected by the parliamentary groups for what they consider a contradiction on the part of Santiago Abascal’s party.
Among other aspects, they criticize that Vox registered the Non-Law Proposal only days after publicly denouncing the withdrawal of the Gold Medal that the Madrid City Council awarded it in 2016, although its municipal spokesman, Javier Ortega Smith, alleged then that it was not clear whether that distinction was recognition of the Russian leader or his people.
Vox’s objective, according to its brief, was, “without prejudice to the subsequent purging of the responsibilities that, under international criminal law, may correspond”, to use this instrument for its “stigmatizing meaning, with an impact on the moral and even patrimonial of the recipient, who may even see his professional or mercantile expectations deteriorated».
His initiative has been rejected by 19 votes against and 15 in favor, but later the groups have agreed on a transactional amendment presented by Ciudadanos and agreed with the PSOE that has finally gone ahead with the support of the PSOE, PP, Ciudadanos and Vox and the abstention of Podemos.
Specifically, the text, to which Europa Press has had access, urges the Government to “declare Vladimir Putin and the senior officials of his regime persona non grata.”
It also asks him to support “international and United Nations mechanisms to judge cases of human rights violations, both committed and ordered” by the Russian president and other senior officials such as those committed in the invasion of Ukraine. The objective must be, they add, to clarify the facts and circumstances and convict those responsible.
