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Today, before the launch of the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the faction of European People's Party (EPP) held heated discussions over the corruption in the PACE, namely the corruption scandal involving Luca Volontè, who is accused of receiving a bribe totalling to 2 million 390 thousand euros from the Azerbaijani government.

As the member of the Armenian delegation to the PACE, RPA MP Samvel Farmanyan told Panorama.am the debate lasted for two hours. The discussion particularly addressed the investigative report made by the Italian Rai TV channel over.

“In my speech I noted that we should speak not about the presumption of innocence, but rather about the political damages the EPP sustained as a political union which Luca Volontè made part of. My speech stressed that we need to issue a political message to the population of Europe to show that we condemn any form of a political corruption. As the largest faction in the EPP I urge to take steps to contribute to the uncovering of that case in full,” Samvel Farmanyan noted.

As Farmanyan stated due to the discussion the PACE is likely to appoint a special rapporteur-investigator on the issue who will carry out an objective investigation in a short period of time and will report to the PACE on the results. The final decision will be taken during the next session of the faction on Wednesday.

To note, over 50 Azerbaijani organizations have sent a special letter to the PACE President and Secretary General over the same case. The Serbian media also made reports over the corruption allegations involving PACE rapporteur Milica Marković's over Sarsang reservoir, which has become a topic of heated debates.