The jailing of opposition activist Alexey Navalny is a "weak reason" to call for the imposition of new sanctions on Russia, Clare Daly, an Irish member of the European Parliament, told Sputnik in an interview
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th February, 2021) The jailing of opposition activist Alexey Navalny is a "weak reason" to call for the imposition of new sanctions on Russia, Clare Daly, an Irish member of the European Parliament, told Sputnik in an interview.
A Moscow court on February 2 ruled to send Navalny to prison for violating the terms of his suspended sentence on an embezzlement conviction. The bloc's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, has said that the EU may impose another round of sanctions on Russia over the activist's jailing, although Daly said that leaders would have a hard time justifying the proposed punitive measures.
"Sanctions are not in anybody's interest. They're not in the interest of the populations of Russia or Europe. Businesses who want to do business with Russia don't want to have the sanctions ... I don't see any merit in further ones. I don't see how they could justify them. Navalny seems to be a really weak reason for it," Daly remarked.
The European Union has hit Russia with several rounds of punitive measures since 2014, and Daly said that she stood firmly against the imposition of sanctions in any context.
"I don't agree with sanctions anywhere. They are a weapon used against populations. They are a new form of warfare and I just don't agree with them at all. So, the idea of calling for an increase in sanctions now. The question I'd pose back is 'for what?," she said, adding that current EU sanctions had "pauperized" many farmers who previously sent goods to Russia.
According to Borrell, who spoke in the European Parliament on February 9 after his trip to Moscow several days earlier, the bloc's foreign ministers will debate the possibility of imposing sanctions on Russia at a meeting on February 22.
The heads of the EU's 27 member states are also expected to discuss the matter during a European Council meeting scheduled to take place on March 25-26.
