DAVOS, January 22. / TASS /. Negative trends in the Russian economy and the decline of its main indicators is not in the interests of the EU, and in particular not in Finnish interests, however only Russia can put a stop to it, said Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb on Thursday at the Davos Economic Forum.
"For the last 25 years, we believed that Russia would be integrated into western structures, and would become a normal western democracy. But the answer that we received after all these years is that it did not happen that way," said Stubb. He added that currently, there are several frozen conflicts at EU borders that, according to him, are connected to Russia in one way or another. "That's not right and that is why the European Union must and will react to it," Stubb said.
In his opinion, the current decline of the Russian economy is "not due to sanctions, but because it was not able to modernize after the Cold War," and still bases its budget revenue on energy and gas, which provides only 50%.
"The ruble has been reduced by 10% inflation, the price of oil yesterday (January 21) $46 per barrel. Is that in our best interest? No. It is in the interest of our security and economy that the situation goes back to normal again. But the only way out is for Russia to do it itself," Stubb said.
"We need to solve the Ukrainian crisis, but now the ball is in Russia's court. And if Russia does not fulfill the Minsk agreements, I do not think that we will be able to solve this problem in the near future," concluded Stubb.