LONDON, June 7 /TASS/. British Prime Minister David Cameron will try to convince his European partners who will gather for the G7 summit in Germany on Sunday of the need to continue stay united against Russia and not to ease economic pressure on Russia, British media reported on Sunday.
The EU economic sanctions against the key enterprises of the Russian banking, oil and defense sectors are expiring in July. If the European Union fails to agree on their extension, the sanctions regime will cease its existence automatically.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Francois Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have repeatedly called for exerting pressure on Russia until full implementation of the Minsk agreements. But the leaders and key ministers of European countries are against extending the sanctions in their present form. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has called for lifting the sanctions many times. He believes that they have damaged both Europe and Russia. Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni also noted that the sanctions were hurting his country’s economy.
Greece may also step out of line and block the extension of the sanctions’ regime against Russia to spite the leadership of major European countries, including Britain, British media said noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin had had a telephone conversation with Tsipras on June 5.
The two politicians discussed bilateral energy cooperation and Greece’s possible participation in the BRICS bank.
"Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and Russian President Vladimir Putin have discussed energy cooperation between the two countries and the Greek prime minister’s participation in the forthcoming Economic Forum in St. Petersburg on June 18-20 as well as Greece’s cooperation with the BRICS bank. The telephone conversation passed in a friendly atmosphere," the Greek government said last week.
"The president and the prime minister discussed practical steps to implement agreements reached during the recent visit of Alexis Tsipras to Russia and the planned construction of gas transportation infrastructure via the territories of Turkey and Greece," the Kremlin press service reported.
"The two leaders agreed to meet at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 18-20," the Kremlin press service said.