Russia's EU Envoy Says Sanctions Becoming Less Popular Policy Tool In European Union

Sanctions are becoming less popular as a policy tool to deal with certain issues in the European Union, Russia's Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov told Sputnik.

BRUSSELS (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 25th September, 2018) Sanctions are becoming less popular as a policy tool to deal with certain issues in the European Union, Russia's Permanent Representative to the EU Vladimir Chizhov told Sputnik.

"I think that now they [sanctions] are becoming less popular as a method to deal with certain issues here in the European Union," Chizhov said.

The diplomat suggested that potential changes in the European Union's policy toward Russia depended to a certain extent on political will.

"I believe that the necessary political will should form gradually.

When it happens, one could expect the shift in the EU policy toward Russia," Chizhov stressed.

Relations between Moscow and the West deteriorated in 2014 after Crimea's reunification with Russia and amid the crisis in eastern Ukraine. The European Union and the United States imposed restrictive measures against Russian individuals, companies and economic sectors. Moscow has responded by imposing restrictions on food imports from the countries that supported the sanctions.