MOSCOW, December 12 (Itar-Tass) —— The course at Eurasian integration confirmed in the Russian President’s Address to the Federal Assembly is in keeping with international tendencies. Mikhail Margelov, the chairman of the Federation Council International Affairs Committee, told Itar-Tass on Wednesday.
“It is extremely important that the Address confirms once again the course at our integration with the closest neighbors, which signifies the beginning of our strong Eurasian rallying of states, also those having the common historic past,” the senator said. “This course meets completely international tendencies combining globalization with regionalization, the world market with regional economic associations,” he noted.
Margelov believes the Address, on the whole, was devoted “to the key issues of Russia’s development, whose solution will bring renewal in the home and foreign policy.” “The President dwelt on the main trends of work that will strengthen our state economically and politically and will consolidate society,” he added.
The committee’s chairman singled out the part of the Address regarding “Russian society‘s attaining values, the basis, so to say, of a clear expression of national interests.” “Such a value as patriotism subtly combining the traditional and new attitude to the Motherland is an earnest of success within the country and outside its boundaries,” Margelov noted. “It is precisely society rallied by patriotism, and, hence, the state, that create a solid basis for the independent foreign policy, for the consolidation of our positions in the rapidly emerging multipolar world, for efficient work of diplomats, for which the President called in his address.” “In this world, as it was noted in the Address, sovereignty means intensive ties with neighbors and partners, as not one state can cope with its problems on its own today,” the senator stressed. “It is practically impossible in the foreign policy today to subdivide diplomacy into purely political and economic,” he added.