EU and US sanctions on Russia over the jailing of an opposition activist are a flagrant interference in its internal affairs, a senior lawmaker from the Left Party in Germany told Sputnik on Wednesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 03rd March, 2021) EU and US sanctions on Russia over the jailing of an opposition activist are a flagrant interference in its internal affairs, a senior lawmaker from the Left Party in Germany told Sputnik on Wednesday.
Tuesday's sanctions were coordinated to target Russian security officials and companies producing chemical and biological agents. Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov called them baseless.
"In practical terms, it is a flagrant interference in the internal affairs of Russia. There is no legal basis for this interference by the EU. Rather, the EU is trying to undermine Russia's state sovereignty," Alexander Neu said.
Neu, who is a spokesman in the German parliament's defense committee, said sanctions were a show of unity against Russia. This was the first but not the last round of sanctions imposed by Washington after President Joe Biden announced his country's return to the transatlantic fold.
"The EU is in the process of intentionally destroying what were once relatively good relations between Moscow and EU members. This obviously has to do with the fact that the transatlanticists in the EU... have gained the upper hand again since Biden took office," he said.
The lawmaker predicted an "unprecedented" decline in EU-Russian ties in politics, diplomacy and business, which has suffered greatly in recent years. Germany has so far resisted US attempts to pull the plug on the Nord Stream 2 gas pipe link but the pressure keeps growing.
Neu described the West's approach to Russia as a "classic case of Western superiority arrogance." He said the Russian foreign minister's warning of a possible break with the EU was regrettable but understandable.
"To assume that Russia will allow itself to be endlessly humiliated and schoolmastered by a vassal-like EU in Washington's wake indicates a complete loss of reality in EU capitals and Brussels. Western Europe is neither conceptually nor power-politically capable of pursuing its own foreign policy," he said.
There are forces of varying political strength in the EU that do not want ties with Russia to go down the drain, Neu stressed. He said that societies in EU countries did not share the EU political elite's taste for a confrontation with Moscow.
