MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th December, 2021) The European Union possesses neither a moral nor legal right to demand from Russia compensation for its import substitution programs, which were a response to the Western sanctions against the country, Russian upper house lawmaker Sergei Tsekov, who serves on the foreign affairs committee, told Sputnik on Sunday.
Earlier this week, the World Trade Organisation granted the EU's request, filed in November, to establish a panel to resolve a public procurement dispute between Brussels and Moscow. According to the EU, the Russian import substitution programs prevented EU companies from selling goods and services to Russia's state-owned enterprises.
"The EU has neither a moral nor legal right to demand compensation from Russia. If they refused to supply us with products under the policy of sanctions, we have the right to manufacture them by ourselves," Tsekov said.
The lawmaker went on to suggest that the West "pay Russia roughly $1 trillion for the losses that we have suffered due to the sanctions."
Following the reunification of Crimea with Russia in 2014 and the beginning of a conflict in eastern Ukraine, Russia's relations with Western countries worsened. The EU, together with the United States, introduced sanctions against Russia, to which it responded with counter-sanctions of its own.
