LIFTING OF SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA: NO CONSENSUS

The EU’s leadership is ignoring the voices calling for lifting sanctions against Russia, while concern is growing among regional European politicians about the real efficiency and the economic toll of the sanctions. 

Isolation is not a tenable policy and only continued dialogue is helpful. In a Europe where those in favor of sanctions and those opposed to sanctions are drifting ever further apart, it is necessary to find a way to keep the EU on the same page. More and more EU Member States have begun questioning the strict penalty regime. Indications are mounting that getting all 28 EU members to approve the extension of the sanctions at the end of June might not be quite so simple. Members of some governments, have very clearly indicated that they are not interested in extending the sanctions in their current stringent form. Austrian Vice Chancellor Reinhold Mitterlehner is among the skeptics as is French Economics Minister Emmanuel Macron. So too are officials from Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal.

Hungary has been particularly outspoken. Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country would not accept an automatic extension of the sanctions regime. Hungarian exports to Russia have collapsed as a result of the penalties, a problem experienced by the Czech Republic and other Eastern European countries as well.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is another EU leader who has long been critical of the EU's approach to Russia. Renzi is bothered by the fact that his country has suffered economic losses as a result of the sanctions while Germany has continued working together with Russia on the Nordstream Pipeline across the Baltic Sea. Italy, the EU's third largest economy, is one of Russia's largest trading partners in Europe.

The mood is changing in France as well. At the end of April, the French parliament adopted a non-binding resolution calling for the end of the penalties imposed on Moscow. One of the reasons cited was that French farmers are suffering the consequences.

The Netherlands, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency, is in a difficult situation. In an April referendum, the Dutch voted against the planned European Union association agreement with Ukraine. The issue wasn't directly related to the issue of Russian sanctions, but some have interpreted it as a pro-Russian vote. Since then, the Dutch government has been acting extremely carefully.

Meanwhile, Great Britain, Poland and the Baltic countries are leading the opposition to any relaxation of the sanctions in place against Russia. But a possible compromise is in the works. Poland and the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania could agree to a step-by-step easing of the sanctions were more NATO troops to be stationed in those countries. Such an arrangement would allow both camps to save face.

Discussion, though, is taking place at all levels. Contacts that were considered unthinkable until recently are now being rebuilt. In early April, for example, a group of German parliamentarians from Merkel's conservatives, Gabriel's SPD and the Left Party came together in Moscow with Sergei Naryshkin as part of a conference held by the German-Russian Forum. A further encounter with Naryshkin is planned ahead of the mid-July meeting of the Petersburg Dialogue, the bilateral discussion forum aimed at promoting exchange between Russian and German civil society. The session is to take place in St. Petersburg and keynote speaker on the German side will be Hamburg Mayor Olaf Scholz.