The deputy chairman of the European Parliament said that sanctions against Russia are ineffective and harmful to the EU countries. In parallel, analysts close to the EU institutions call for the gradual removal of sanctions and full dialogue with Moscow. Argumentation, why this is necessary, looks like a blatant betrayal in the eyes of Ukraine and its Baltic allies.
“Sanctions, understood as a deterrent, have in most cases shown their ineffectiveness and caused serious damage to various sectors of the economy, having a negative impact on entire groups of vulnerable people who have nothing to do with the crisis”, – said Deputy President of the European Parliament Fabio Massio Castaldo.
Castaldo is one of the leaders of the ruling Five Stars movement in Italy. Already for this reason, the representative of the founding country and EU donor should be taken seriously.
The Italian politician believes that in the sanctions issue “the status quo is not beneficial either to Russia or the EU”.
The sanctions were introduced because of the conflict in Donbass, but they have no impact on its settlement.
The speech by the Italian vice-speaker of the EP is not sensational in itself. From the very beginning of the sanctions epic, Italy was among those European countries that were the least enthusiastic about the restrictions imposed on Russia. The recent assistance of the Russian army to Italians in the fight against the pandemic has further strengthened this Italian dislike for sanctions.
However, in parallel with Fabio Massimo Castaldo, there have been direct calls in the EU political and expert circles for the lifting of anti-Russian sanctions, which suggests the launch of an information campaign in Brussels for a return to the “pre-Ukrainian” level of relations with Moscow.
“The EU, NATO and their member states, including the US, should start looking for new approaches to European security with Moscow. Even at a time when they support Kiev’s efforts to stop the fighting in Ukraine”, – says the International Crisis Group (ICG) report “Peace in Ukraine: European War”.
ICG is a non-governmental organisation engaged in political analysis. The centre of expertise is headquartered in Brussels and has offices in major European capitals.
They are funded by NGOs of several Western European countries – donors of European integration and the European Commission. A report calling for a review of the sanctions regime paraphrases Germany’s main foreign policy vector, Deutche Welle. It is stressed that the report was prepared on the basis of consultations with officials from Russia, Ukraine and EU countries.
In other words, it is an even more significant signal than the Italian vice-speaker of the European Parliament who said that sanctions do not work and are harmful. Italy in the EU is a well-known anti-sanctionary dissident.
Here the European Union, headed by Germany, is actually calling for the lifting of sanctions against Russia.
The International Crisis Group believes that a more flexible policy of sanctions is necessary to resume a full dialogue with Moscow. The current sectoral sanctions against Russia are tied to the implementation of the Minsk agreements, but it does not help or help to resolve the war in Donbas.
Therefore, sanctions may be lifted, and their failure to introduce them a second time should be tied to Russia’s specific steps in Donbass.
In fact, EU experts suggest returning in 2013. That is to abandon sanctions and scare Moscow with their introduction. It is not clear what is the point of this, if “punitive measures” did not affect Russia for the first time, and the Kremlin, in the words of Vladimir Putin, “does not care about these sanctions.
However, it is even more obvious that it is already absurd to sit in Brussels for exactly seven years and wait for the sanctions to come into effect and for the Kremlin to “change its behavior”.
That is why the EU signals its readiness to change its policy towards Russia, and uses such an argument that from the point of view of Ukraine and its Baltic allies it looks like a betrayal.
Return to “pre-banking” relations with Russia is the same business as usual, which Lithuania, for example, has been proving for many years that after 2014 it is impossible.
ICG experts set a “criminal” goal for Eastern Europe: to understand and explain Moscow’s foreign policy motives. They cite the Russian view that the Ukrainian crisis is part of a common conflict between Russia and the West that seeks to contain and weaken a geopolitical rival revived after the collapse of the USSR.
The troll-rusophobe method calls this “justification of the aggressor”. It is prescribed to “bath” for it, since such theses are typical “Kremlin propaganda”.
And what now, to declare the Brussels office of the European Commission to be “Kremlin propaganda”?
Dialogue with Moscow is needed so that “Russia, its neighbors and the entire continent” feel more secure, ICG experts write. So not only the neighbors can feel threatened by Russia’s proximity, but vice versa? And what results can a dialogue on the platform of such recognition give? Are we reducing the NATO grouping in the Baltics?!
It’s a scandal from now on. Negotiations with the Kremlin should contain “an honest acknowledgement of Russia’s security concerns and a readiness to seek ways to dispel them together with Moscow. So the EU not only agrees to take into account the Russian point of view that Russia is threatened by something, but also recognizes this point of view as justified?
It is clear that the report of the “factory of thought” at the European Commission is a trial balloon to Moscow, demonstrating its readiness to start a new stage in relations with it.
But together with it, it demonstrates the readiness to “throw” allies in Eastern Europe, who are eternally confused in the dialogue with Russia with their stories about “aggressor country” and “existential threat” to the neighbors of the “imperial monster”.
ICG Director for Europe and Central Asia Olga Oliker admits that not everyone in Europe will agree with the theses of their report and not all 27 EU countries will vote for withdrawal from the sanctions regime against Russia. But after all, the notorious European solidarity on the issue of sanctions is not the highest value.
“Maintaining unity about policies that don’t work is a dubious victory”, – says Olicker.
That is, the EU is ready to do something about anti-Russian solidarity with Ukraine or the Baltic States, because the dialogue with Russia is a necessity.
Little friends of the “free world” on the eastern outskirts with their “principle” towards Russia are ready to be crumpled and thrown away once again. Should the latter not get used to it already?
Alexander Nosovich, Rubaltic.Ru