Russia Intends To Cooperate With EU If Dialogue's Agenda Not Politicized - Lavrov

Moscow was not the initiator of cooling relations with the EU, it is determined to normalize interaction in certain areas if the dialogue agenda is not sacrificed to geopolitical interests, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 08th February, 2021) Moscow was not the initiator of cooling relations with the EU, it is determined to normalize interaction in certain areas if the dialogue agenda is not sacrificed to geopolitical interests, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.

"I noticed that following his visit to Moscow on February 4-6, the EU High Representative published a number of comments on his blog. In one of them, he makes the case as if 'Russia is rapidly moving away from Europe.' During negotiations with [Josep] Borrell in Moscow, I just spoke about the importance of building Russia-EU relations on a systematic basis," Lavrov said in his commentary.

The minister noted that in 2014 "the EU itself brought down the architecture of multifaceted ties with our country that had been painstakingly created over the years."

"The root cause was, let me remind you, the support of the European Union for an anti-constitutional coup in Ukraine with a pronounced anti-Russian flavor. As a result, the Russia-EU summits, which were held twice a year, and meetings of the Russian government with the European Commission were suspended. The formats of the Russia-EU Permanent Council and two dozen sectoral dialogues are frozen.

Earlier, long before the coup in Ukraine, at the insistence of individual EU member states, work on a draft agreement on short-term visa-free travel for Russian and EU citizens was interrupted," the Russian minister said.

According to Lavrov, since 2004, when the Baltic countries joined the EU, "there has been open and consistent discrimination against the Russian-speaking population living there."

"A reasonable question arises - who is moving away from whom? Maybe it is the European Union itself that is alienating Russia, the Russian language and culture? As for the Russian side, we once again confirmed at the talks in Moscow our focus on normalizing the entire range of relations with the European Union on the basis of not unilateral demands, but mutual respect and consideration of each other's interests," Lavrov said.

"With this approach, we are also ready for interaction in certain areas, where our interests coincide. In Moscow, by the way, such areas of deepening cooperation as health care, science and technology, climate change were agreed. If we add the key traditional direction of energy, it will turn out to be quite solid, mutually beneficial agenda, if you do not sacrifice it to geopolitical games," the minister stressed.