DVORIKI VILLAGE /Vladimir region/, August 11. /TASS/. European countries are discontent with Brussels bureaucracy which undertakes too much and ignores opinions of the European Union member states, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday.
"In the present day world, crises and conflicts emerge before our year… entire countries go to pieces, for instance Iraq, Libya. Their statehood is threatened," he said at the Terra Scientia youth forum. "Intervention in Iraq and Libya has opened a gate for terrorists to the rest of Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia. Chaos has been sown in other countries in the Middle East and North Africa."
"The terrorist group Islamic State (outlawed in Russia) is already there. It has paved the way for extremists and terrorists into Asia and Europe," he said. "Pressed by these problems, Europe must derive some conclusions. We wish it success."
However, he noted, "many European countries have been conducting the policy that has entailed these flagrant, force-reliant, illegal actions we see now." "Discontent with Brussels bureaucracy, which has come to undertake too much, ignoring opinions of the European member states, is growing," the Russian top diplomat underscored. "We want to see the European Union strong and united. Probably, we have underestimated the degree of its independence, its ability to react to the challenges of today in the constructive manner and the degree of its readiness for equal, mutually beneficial dialogue and cooperation with Russia, without reference to the aggressive Russophobic minority," he said.
"This minority is seeking to abuse the European Union’s principle of consensus and solidarity, which requires to base the positions of all other members on the least common denominator," Lavrov said. "And this least denominators is openly anti-Russian."
"I hope serious European Union member states, which understand the inadmissibility and unacceptability of sticking to this policy, will try to do what is absolutely logical: if it is a consensus, there should be an agreement reckoning with all points of view but not merely giving rein to those who opt to whimsical and impose aggressive and confrontations approaches on all the rest," the Russian foreign minister added.