Germany said the EU is facing difficult talks on extending sanctions against Russia over the conflict in Ukraine, due to the increased resistance of some member states, according to an interview released yesterday.
German Minister of Foreign Affairs Frank-Walter Steinmeier also told the Baltic News Service (BNS) that the West needed to engage in dialogue with Russia to “rebuild” lost trust and tackle crises in Syria and Libya.
Steinmeier, who was to hold talks in Vilnius and Riga yesterday with Baltic partners Lithuania and Latvia focused on NATO’s July summit in Warsaw, said “we are aware that resistance in the EU to extending the sanctions towards Russia has increased.
“It will be more difficult than it was last year to find a common position on this issue,” he said.
Steinmeier did not single out specific EU countries resisting continued sanctions, but Italy and Hungary have been among the most skeptical, while Poland and the Baltic states have repeatedly pressed for maintaining pressure on Moscow.
Current EU sanctions on Russia’s banking, defense and energy sectors expire in July. Extending them would require a unanimous vote and EU leaders are expected to discuss the issue next month.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini told a German daily last week that she expects an extension of the sanctions.
Steinmeier told BNS that Germany would “work hard to ensure that Europe presents a united front on this question,” adding that penalties remain “inextricably linked” to the peace deal over eastern Ukraine.
Last year’s peace accords signed in the Belarussian capital Minsk call for a ceasefire along with a range of political, economic and social measures to end the conflict that has claimed more than 9,300 lives since April 2014.
Ties between Russia and the West have plunged to their lowest point since the Cold War over Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from Kiev and its support for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine.
Spooked by Russia’s actions, the eastern European states have lobbied the US-led alliance to increase its presence in the region.
The Lithuanian Ministry of Defense last month said that Germany “plans forming a NATO battalion group” in the nation.
Steinmeier said NATO would discuss additional deployments at the July summit in Poland, without elaborating.
He also said it was “good” that the NATO-Russia Council would meet ahead of the Warsaw summit.
“We need a dialogue with Russia in order to rebuild the trust that has been lost and to reduce the risk of being inadvertently drawn into a spiral of escalation,” Steinmeier said.
“We need Russia in tackling the major international trouble spots — both in Syria and in our efforts to stabilize Libya,” he said.
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