Excerpts of Ambassador’s remarks:
“The year 2019 is special in Russia-EU relations. In December we will celebrate 30 years of diplomatic relations of our country and the European Communities, whereas on the 24 June the 25th anniversary will be marked of the signing of PCA between the Russian Federation and the European Communities and their Member States, which continues to be the fundamental basis of our relations today. This double anniversary is a good opportunity to look back at the distance covered, draw some preliminary conclusions, analyse mistakes and outline further steps".
"Up to the year 2014 Russia and the EU were developing quite rapidly their economic and humanitarian cooperation, interacting in addressing a number of regional conflicts and settling of different crises”.
“In the 25 years since the introduction of the PCA the trade turnover between Russia and the EU increased tenfold. Of course, there were ups and downs along the way. The peak figure came in 2012, when Russia and the EU traded at the level of a billion euros a day. Then we had a slump for a number of reasons. Now, since 2017 the rate is picking up again. In 2018, according to Eurostat, our trade reached a figure of 253,6 billion euros”.
“I cannot but express my disappointment with the fact that today I can only characterise Russia-EU relations as abnormal. Much of the architecture of our cooperation has been frozen after well-known decisions taken by the EU on invented pretexts”.
“What we need is a new paradigm of relations. It is not so important how to name that paradigm. What is important is the substance. The substance should be dictated by pragmatism of the two sides and the need for Russia and the EU to work together in promoting the role of our common Eurasian civilization in this increasingly volatile, multipolar globalising world. We still believe that a common economic and humanitarian space from Lisbon to Vladivostok is a realistic concept and we are open to continuing this work together with our EU partners”.
“In its report on disinformation and election interference the European Commission itself outlined that it does not possess any specific evidence pointing to Russian interference in the European elections. I am not surprised that it does not, because there was no such interference. The rather vague reference to “Russian sources” can have different meanings. Were they Russian-language sources or sources that perhaps originated in Russia, but were misused in another countries? In any case, this is not hard evidence”.
“Tensions do exist between Russia and the US, between the EU and the US, they certainly exist between China and the US. Our relations with the US today are bad. They have deteriorated in the last few years and, unfortunately, the trend continues. Still we are open for dialogue with Washington and we are looking forward to possible meeting between presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Osaka, Japan, on the sidelines of the G20 summit”.
“Unfortunately, the INF Treaty seems more dead than alive, which is a very negative development. We are quite sorry about that. Not only the INF itself, but the overall situation in arms control. What we are left with after the demise of the INF is only the START 3 Treaty which expires in February 2021. That is less than 2 years from now, and time flies. If there is no agreement to prolong it or negotiate a new one to replace it, then the we will enter a more dangerous phase of history”.
“We are doing everything we can to preserve the JCPOA. I know that the remaining 5 participants of the JCPOA are preparing a new meeting of the Joint Commission in the following days and weeks. One important thing is to give an impetus to the new mechanism called INSTEX created by the EU and the “European troika”, which has so far had a difficult take-off”.
“We are aware of the situation in other parts of the world and other parts of Europe where documents issued by authorities of non-recognised entities are still recognised by other countries. In the two Donbass republics until now their local documents were recognised by the Russian authorities, but that was not enough for them to be able to travel or register their newborn children or even register the passing away of their relatives because Ukrainian authorities were not accepting any references to that. So it was a purely humanitarian gesture. The latest development has been to allow Ukrainian citizens who have been resident in Crimea and Sevastopol, but had left the peninsula before 18 March 2014 to apply for Russian citizenship using facilitated procedure. Over 20 thousand have done so. It is done purely voluntarily and should not be perceived in an over politicised fashion”.
“Russia is open-minded to promoting relations with all political forces that are willing to pursue cooperation with Russia except, of course, neo-Nazis and fascists. In my view, in the 21st century the classical definition of left, centre and right-wing forces has become somewhat blurred. We have good relations with political forces across the world who define themselves as right-wing, conservative, centrist and left”.
