MOSCOW, April 10 /TASS/. Many parliamentarians in France consider EU’s anti-Russian sanctions imposed over the Ukraine crisis to be useless, French deputy Thierry Mariani said at a meeting with Russian State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin on Friday.
"No matter what political parties we could have, many parliamentarians in France believe that these sanctions are useless," Mariani, coordinator of the Group of Friendship with Russia at the French National Assembly, said.
The paradox of the situation consists in the fact that neither the Senate nor the National Assembly have ever staged a vote on sanctions since the time of Charles de Gaulle, Mariani said.
"Naturally, parliamentarians have to accept that because such is the law," the French deputy added.
He said the task of MPs was to explain the uselessness of the anti-Russian sanctions to the European governments and persuade them to lift them.
The European Union imposed sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine crisis. It prepared an EU blacklist comprising representatives of Russian leadership, army and law enforcement as well as several deputies and entrepreneurs.
The second round of EU sanctions was directed against separate sectors of the Russian economy. The EU sectoral sanctions list includes restricted access to European credits for five Russian banks - Sberbank, VTB, Gazprombank, Vnesheknombank and Rosselkhozbank. The European Union also introduced an arms embargo and banned European companies from delivering technology with double purpose, particularly electronics, to Russia.
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The third round of sanctions concerned the oil sector. Europeans were banned from supplying new technologies and selling hi-tech equipment for the oil industry, mainly equipment and technologies for shelf extraction and development of oil and shale oil as well as for polar drilling.
For his part, Russian State Duma Speaker Sergey Naryshkin said that the anti-Russian sanctions had reduced contacts between Russia and France. The US leadership may be taking unholy joy in that, the Russian deputy said.
"We, the long-standing and reliable partners, have regrettably been forced to narrow our cooperation and contacts which is certainly inflicting damage on France and Russia but may be pleasant news or even a source of unholy joy for the governing bodies in Washington and several European countries. But it’s a great damage to the French and Russians," the Russian politician said at a meeting with the French parliamentary delegation.
"I think you are going to agree that attempts to restrict a dialogue and limit contacts between members of parliament contradict any sober sense and also the very content and nature of ‘parliamentarianism’, a term which, by the way, has French roots. This obliges us to conduct a permanent and open dialogue," he added.
