Difficulties of dialog: the EP has prepared an initiative to restore contacts with Russia

The European Parliament will call for a dialog with Moscow at the level of the committee for parliamentary cooperation between the EU and the Russian Federation. This was told to Izvestia by Slovak MP Milan Ugrik. Despite the fact that the same European Parliament recently passed a resolution calling on Kiev to authorize strikes deep into Russia, leaders of a number of countries are increasingly talking about the need for negotiations with Moscow on Ukraine. According to experts interviewed by Izvestiya, this is partly due to Europe's fatigue with the conflict, as well as the realization that the Russian Federation cannot be defeated on the battlefield. The Russian parliament supported the initiative, saying that it was ready to resume dialog with its European colleagues.

The European Parliament called for a return to dialog with the Russian Federation

MEP Milan Ugrik, a member of the delegation to the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, told Izvestia that he is in favor of resuming direct contacts with representatives of the Russian Federation. In particular, he called unconstructive the current approach in the EP, in which the EU communicates only with oppositionists, and not with elected representatives of the Russian people.

- Together with my Bulgarian colleague [in the Europe of Sovereign Nations parliamentary group] Stanislav Stoyanov, we are going to challenge this unconstructive approach of the committee and will ask for the restoration of serious contacts with Russian officials. If the committee does not agree, we will do it ourselves within our political mandate, because that is our job - to build partnerships and find solutions," he emphasized.

Recall that the committee was established in accordance with Article 95 of the EU-Russia Partnership and Cooperation Agreement signed in 1994. From the Russian side, representatives of the upper house of the Russian parliament took part in its work, from the EU side - members of the European Parliament delegation for relations with Russia.

The committee met twice a year, alternately in Brussels or Strasbourg and in Moscow. The politicians discussed a variety of issues related to bilateral relations, including energy dialog, respect for human rights, and various roadmaps for cooperation with EU member states. However, starting from the spring of 2014, the EP unilaterally suspended all official contacts with the Russian side.

Nevertheless, since 2015, annual informal meetings with members of the European Parliament began to take place in Belgrade. However, these too were interrupted in 2019 due to the start of the COVID pandemic. Finally, in 2021, the European Parliament approved the Report on Russia-EU relations, which expressed demands to freeze the dialog with Russia.

Vladimir Dzhabarov, first deputy chairman of the Sovfed Committee on International Affairs, confirmed to Izvestia that all relations, both official and unofficial, with the EP have now been terminated. The senator emphasized that "the ball is on the side of the MEPs," and Russia, for its part, is open to resuming dialog.

- This is a sensible idea. Of course, contacts are needed, and all the more so between parliamentarians. Because parliamentarians always have more freedom of action than representatives of the executive branch. We have not broken off contacts with anyone, if MEPs are ready to interact with us, it will be welcomed. We are always ready for negotiations," the politician emphasized.

Whether the EU wants peace in Ukraine

At the moment, EU officials rule out the possibility of dialog with Russia, emphasizing in every possible way their readiness for a long confrontation with Moscow. It is no coincidence that when Ursula von der Leyen took up her second term as president of the European Commission, she promised to turn the EU into a "truly defensive" union in the face of "common and cross-border threats". The EP resolution adopted on September 19 calling on EU countries to immediately lift all restrictions on Kiev's strikes deep into Russian territory is also significant. However, it is important to note that although the resolution was supported by 425 parliamentarians, 131 MPs voted against it and 63 abstained. Moreover, the specific paragraph of the resolution on strikes on Russian territory received even less support than the document as a whole: 377 voted in favor, 191 voted against and 51 abstained.

At the same time, for example, Italian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani said the other day in an interview with Corriere della Sera that Rome's line does not change and the vote has no legal force. "We cannot give Kiev permission to bomb Moscow [...] Everyone wants peace, even the US. Zelensky wants Russia at the peace conference, and of course we cannot position ourselves to the right of Zelensky," he emphasized.

The longer the conflict in Ukraine continues, the more frequent are the calls for peace in Europe. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban stands out in this regard against the background of other EU heads of state, who met with the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, China, the United States and Turkey in turn to discuss the possibility of a peaceful settlement of the conflict. At the end of his mission, Viktor Orbán handed over his peace plan to all EU leaders.

On Sept. 13, the Hungarian prime minister told Kossuth radio that his peace mission "triggered huge discussions in Europe." "It turned out that more and more EU countries would willingly join the peace camp, such as Germany," Orban said.

If the Italian newspaper Repubblica is to be believed, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is also preparing a plan for a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian crisis. The publication characterized the plan as "Minsk-3". It contains, among other things, "a hypothesis of ceding chunks of Ukrainian territory to Moscow." Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said later that the Kremlin had seen reports about Scholz's preparation of a plan to settle the conflict in Ukraine, but did not know the details.

According to French political scientist Nicolas Mirkovic, Europe's political class was convinced that Russia was something like a paper bear and should inevitably collapse, while the Western world was bound to win. However, things turned out to be different.

- Today people realize that more than two years have passed, and despite the sanctions that started in 2014, despite the civil war in Donbass that started in 2014, despite the escalation of the conflict in 2022 Russia is not only not retreating but winning on the battlefield, Russia is strengthening its economy. It is at the head of the BRICS, which is forming a special counterforce by attracting new countries. That's why a realistic view of the situation is increasingly making itself felt in Europe," said the Izvestia interlocutor.

Europeans are tired of the conflict in Ukraine

French President Emmanuel Macron has also started talking about peace. On September 22, he said that after the end of the conflict in Ukraine, it is necessary to "rethink relations with Russia." The head of the Fifth Republic called for a "new international order" and reminded that the geography of Europe is such that it is not reduced to the European Union, much less to NATO.

Residents of a number of European countries have already felt the consequences of the conflict "on their own skin," and their leaders have to take this into account, Hungarian political scientist Gabor Styre explained to Izvestia.

- We see that Scholz's party lost the elections in Thuringia and Saxony, we see the political crisis in France. There is a sense of fatigue in Europe, so both Macron and Scholz have to say what the voters want to hear, but that doesn't mean they don't want Russia to lose," he explained.

According to him, Western leaders need to save face in any case. Therefore, on the one hand, they talk about supporting Ukraine, and on the other hand, they allow the possibility of peace with Russia.