The European Union is closely following Russia’s vote on constitutional amendments and hopes that Russia will do everything possible to ensure that the country’s international obligations continue to be met, a representative of the European Commission said at a press conference in Brussels.
“We are closely watching this … The amendment concerning the prevalence of the Russian Constitution over international law and the decisions of international courts is interesting … We hope that Russia will do everything possible to preserve the legal framework that will help to ensure that Russia’s international obligations will be fulfilled”, – he said.
Responding to a question from journalists about an amendment allowing the current Russian president to run for a new term, the EC representative stressed that “it is up to each country to determine the length of their presidents’ mandates. “Every country has the right to determine the length of the mandate of its leaders,” he said.
As the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation stated earlier, the legislation of a number of countries, including European ones, has “reserves” that guarantee the priority of the constitution over the decisions of other courts. It asked the questions “why such excessive attention is paid to this particular aspect, which is absolutely legitimized from the point of view of international law”.