The European Parliament called on Brussels to negotiate instead of imposing sanctions
The European Union (EU) should switch to diplomacy instead of imposing new sanctions against Russia to end the conflict in Ukraine. Thomas Geisel, a member of the European Parliament from Germany, told Izvestia on July 24.
"The European Union should invest its political capital in diplomacy, and not in ritual sanctions rounds, the main effect of which is only to demonstrate their own limits," he said.
According to him, the EU has reached a political agreement on the 21st package of sanctions, but in a significantly reduced form, after three failed votes and several weeks of deadlock. At the same time, the 20 sanctions packages did not have a significant impact on ending the conflict in Ukraine.
"Sanctions as a tool have clearly failed to achieve this goal, while resulting in significant costs for European and Russian industry, as well as for consumers," the politician said.
The MEP did not answer whether the 21st package would be the last major round of restrictions. However, he believes that the political logic of the endless introduction of new packages is becoming obsolete: each new round requires an increasing number of exceptions, reservations and painful compromises in order to preserve unanimity.
"A policy that has to be emasculated even before it is adopted is not a policy of force," Gaisel stressed.
On July 23, the EU Council finally approved the 21st package of sanctions against Russia. Moscow considers these restrictions illegitimate. The restrictions include restrictions on 48 individuals, 170 organizations, as well as 94 Russian banks and large financial institutions. In addition, the ban on transactions has been extended to 33 more Russian credit and financial institutions, as well as to a number of foreign banks that, according to the EU, helped circumvent sanctions.
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