MOSCOW, March 21 - RAPSI. The PACE Monitoring Committee has appointed Theodora Bakoyannis from Greece as the new co-rapporteur for Russia, Leonid Slutsky, head of the State Duma Committee on the CIS, told RIA Novosti by telephone.

Speaking after the committee's meeting, he said that the new rapporteur had been the foreign minister of Greece and the mayor of Athens. "The Russian delegation is satisfied with the election of Ms Bakoyannis. She is a constructive politician who is greatly respected in PACE," Slutsky said.

The other candidate considered for the post was Pieter Omtzigt from the Netherlands, who proposed last year that the assembly consider a resolution on lawyer Sergei Magnitsky's death in custody.

"The attempt to appoint a pathologically anti-Russia person who is using the Magnitsky case to undermine Russia's prestige in the Council of Europe has failed," Slutsky said.

Ms Bakoyannis will replace Gyorgy Frunda, a Hungarian politician who held this post for more than three years and prepared his last report on Russia's compliance with its obligations and commitments to the Council of Europe and presented it in PACE in October 2012. PACE ruled that Moscow had not fully honored the obligations it assumed in 1996 and extended the monitoring period.

Chairman of the PACE Socialist Group Andreas Gross, Switzerland, is the existing co-rapporteur for Russia.

Slutsky did not say when PACE would start preparing a new report on Russia. According to set procedure, a monitoring report should be presented once every two years.