MOSCOW, April 27. /TASS/. The European Commission apparently does not seem intent to review its policy towards Russia, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday.
"Although High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Spain's former Foreign Minister Josep Borrell has repeatedly announced his plans to begin to review the European Union’s policy towards Russia, so far, we have seen nothing of that," he said in a video lecture for students of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO). "But we are always open for dialogue with any of the European Union structures."
He stressed that Russia cherishes no offences in relations with the European Union and is not seeking to do any harm to the European integration when it develops bilateral relations with individual EU nations. "It is absolutely wrong to accuse us of seeking to shatter anything or to drive any wedges," he stressed.
"If you don’t want to implement the existing agreements of strategic partnership and cooperation, how can we force you to do that?," he said.
"There are countries that are developing cooperation with Russia in full compliance with the authority granted by the European Union on the national level," he said, adding that such cooperation is quite successful. As an example, he cited France, Italy, Hungary and some other states.
Multilateralism
Russia will do its best to bring it home to the Western nations that the concept of multilateralism is detrimental and that everything should center round the United Nations Charter, the top diplomat said on Monday.
"France and Germany have been pressing for the concept of multilateralism for the second year in a row and are calling for establishing an alliance of its supporters. I asked why France, Germany and those countries that are backing them think that multilateralism is anything else but the United Nations. I have received no answer as of yet," he told MGIMO students. "We will spare no effort to explain that any scenarios relying on any other structures but the United Nations Charter are detrimental."
All nations "must be part of international efforts," Lavrov stressed. "Some will be more active, some not. Big countries apparently have bigger authority and smaller countries traditionally lean towards bigger players," the minister explained. "But it doesn’t change the core of the problem. You can be a leader but you must not put anyone aside, the more so when it is done on ideological grounds."
The foreign minister noted that it was arrogant and insulting of the European Union to call on everyone to align themselves to it as only the United Nations is a real embodiment of actual multilateralism. "So, attempts at forging any alliances beyond this unique and absolutely legitimate multilateral structure always give rise to questions," he noted. "Attempts to take those topics that are uncomfortable for our Western colleagues beyond the United Nations format and address them among themselves to later present them as a manifestation of collective endeavor are observed in various spheres, including non-proliferation of chemical weapons, information dissemination and protection of space."