News - Russia State Duma indefinitely postpones bill on recognition of Armenia driver's licenses

The Russian State Duma has decided to indefinitely postpone the debates on the bill on the recognition of the national driver's licenses of Armenian citizens when they carry out entrepreneurial or work activities, the press service of the Russian parliament informed. "As for Armenia, we see there is no status of Russian, the latest decisions are not aimed at the development of relations in this domain," said Vyacheslav Volodin, chairman of the Russian State Duma. He explained that in fact the bill is supposed to give additional privileges to Armenia, although the leadership, MPs, and government of Armenia did not take any steps to strengthen the status of the Russian language in Armenia, and that it is on this basis that Russia allows the use of national driver’s licenses of other countries in Russia. "We have adopted such decisions for Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, as the Russian language is constitutionally specified at them," Volodin said. The aforesaid bill was introduced in the first reading in April 2022 and was adopted in June of the same year. Evgeny Moskvichev,  Chairman of the Committee on Transport and Development of Transport Infrastructure of the Russian State Duma, proposed to stop the consideration of this bill. In his opinion, this proposed law currently does not correspond to Russia's interests. Volodin, in turn, instructed the profile committees of the State Duma to work out the matter and propose further steps.