With the expulsion of the Russian Federation from the Council of Europe on 16th March 2022, the Directors of the Russian State Library in Moscow, the National Library of Russia and the Yeltsin Presidential Library in St. Petersburg are no longer members of the Conference of European National Librarians. According to the foundation‘s statutes, CENL membership is open only to members of the Council of Europe and Vatican City.

As the Russian Federation is no longer a member of the Council of Europe, the basis for membership of Directors from national libraries in Russia no longer applies. The membership expired on 16th March 2022. This has been officially acknowledged by the CENL Executive Committee after legal counselling.

Europe’s national libraries stand together in support for their member Lyubov Andriivna Dubrovina, the staff of the Vernadsky National Library of Ukraine and all Ukrainian colleagues. CENL concentrates now on exchanging and facilitating concrete offers of help for Ukrainian colleagues as well as preserving Ukraininan cultural heritage in physical and digital form.

The Secretariat encourages all CENL members to send information on support and help for Ukrainian libraries and librarians to cenl@dnb.de.